You are attending an main-line Protestant ecclesiastical deliberative assembly. The plenary has appointed an ad hoc committee to review the budget, prepare recommendations related to the same, and report back to the plenary the next day. The ad hoc committee is a large one---120 voting members present---membership in the ad hoc committee being based upon a lottery-style allocation of 20% of the assemblys total voting membership (for purposes of determining quorum) of 1000 members. During the course of the ad committees proceedings, a recommendation for the consideration of the plenary has been moved and properly seconded. Debate is opened on the recommendation. As debate proceeds, some of the members coming to the mic, speak about the plight of Elbonians---a topic for which there is no small amount of sympathy among voting members but also one that has no obvious budgetary ramifications). None of those speaking about Elbonia offer any amendments to the main motion. After several speeches on Elbonia, a voting member calls a point of order, stating that the speeches are not germane to the main motion. The chair responds that the chair thinks that the speeches are germane and declines the point of order. Another member immediately rises and calls for an appeal from the decision of the chair (on the chairs declining of the point of order on germaneness). A viva voce vote is immediately held, and there appears to be approx. 40 who dissent from the ruling of the chair. The chairs ruling is sustained. A call for division of the house is refused as dilatory (and to be honest, the majority clearly supported the chair).[paragraph added in response to Brian Nunnallys suggestion] Your observations of the room lead you to suspect that approx. 50 members in the room are part of the Macaroni Movement as indicated by the small plastic pasta pins that they are wearing. The nodding heads youve seen in the hall lead you to suspect that there is strong sympathy for the Elbonians, but, among the sympathetic, you noticed that there were those who nodded when the voting member who called the point of order on the speeches not being germane. Youve also noted that the mics have especially long lines and well over half of those in line are wearing plastic pasta pins. RRONR is the parliamentary authority and there are no special rules of order related to the committees operation. Speeches are limited to 3 minutes. What is your analysis of the situation? What are the threats/opportunities? What are your options as a voting member? Inspired by a dream I had last night---and, No, I did not read RRONR before going to bed---I played Scrabble.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 14:59:13 +0000
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