Tuesday, September 25, 2012

CONVENTION USA RULES COMMITTEE

THIS BLOG HAS BEEN CREATED AS A SITE FOR THE MEETINGS OF THE RULES COMMITTEE OF CONVENTION USA. COMMENTS BY DELEGATES AND OTHERS WILL BE PUBLISHED BUT MAY BE REMOVED AS DIRECTED BY THE COMMITTEE.

Dear Rules Committee Members:

Please excuse my lack of response to these various suggestions by Delegate Prather.  I had had difficulty getting access to the blog, but now all seems to be in order.

Let me begin to suggesting some common terms we might use in communicating with each other.  The correct abbreviation for Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (11th Edition) which is the current edition of Robert's and the official parliamentary authority of the Convention, is RONR.  I suggest we use this shortland when referring to Robert's and when we quote rules from our parliamentary authority, I suggest we use:  RONR, page 322, line 6-9.  This will make it clear to all of us what part of RONR we are referring to.

It would be helpful to me if each member of the rules committee responded to this blog post and included your name and email address so that if we wish to email each other, we all have each other's email.

I wait to hear form each of you.

We have a set of rules in place for the Convention.  Our role as the Rules Committee is to continue to monitor the rules and offer any suggestions for changes we feel are helpful.

I would suggest that if you have an opportunity, it would be good for you to review Madison's notes on the rules used at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.  The rules were fairly simple and included, final authority by the Chair to rule on all points of order without appeal, motions needing to be adopted by a majority of the state delegations, and unlimited right to reconsider an item which motion could be moved by any delegate not only those who voted on the prevailing side.

These three rules are notably different from the current edition of RONR.  So I believe we ought to at least discuss whether we want to follow the example of 1787 or use our own rules.  Possibly, since any amendment to the US Constition would require more than a majority of the states, maybe we should have a higher requirement than a majority of the states.

Other than that, I believe the other two rules are far superior in the case of our Convention to RONR.  What would be your opinions about this?

I look forward to hearing from each of you.

Sincerly,

Dr. Leonard M. Young, PRP
Rules Committee Chairman