What are Incidental Motions?

The past two classes in AEE 297 a were all about Incidental Motions. Our Robert's Rules of Order book is becoming our best friend as we dive head first into these motions.

Incidental motions are motions that are not planned. They have no order of precedence because they are taken up when they are made, unlike other motions. 

There are 11 incidental motions total, but we focused on the 8 common ones. Our mnemonic device is...

Point of Order 

• This motion does not need a second, is not debatable, amendable, and does not require a vote.
• Point of Order corrects a mistake in the rules. It should not be used on minor infractions because it can be a waste of time during a meeting. 

Object to Consideration of Question

• This motion does not require a second, is not debatable, amendable, and requires a 2/3 vote in the negative.
• The purpose is to allow an assembly to avoid an original main motion when it can be considered undesirable for the assembly. 

Withdraw 

• This motion does not require a second, unless the question has been stated by the chair. It is not debatable or amendable and does not require a vote unless it has been stated by the chair. Then it requires majority vote to pass. 
• This motion becomes useful when the motion maker realizes the main motion can conflict or won't work for the assembly. 

Parliamentary Inquiry

• This motion does not require a second, is not debatable or amendable, and does not require a vote.
• The purpose of this motion is to ask a question about how to perform parliamentary procedure. 

Appeal

• This motion requires a second and is debatable when it is applied to a motion. It cannot be amended and requires a majority vote.
• A chair is delegated to run a meeting and make decisions, but any member has the right to appeal from the decision. 
• EXAMPLE: There has been a main motion made and seconded and the chair has asked for debate. Three members stand at the same time to be recognized by the chair, one of them being the motion maker. The chair decides to recognize Sally instead. Another member can call point of order, but if the chair decides to continue in recognizing Sally, someone can appeal the chairs decision. 

Division of Assembly

• This motion does not require a second, is not debatable or amendable, and does not require a vote.
• This motion is used during voting. Most of the time there are voice votes taken. Voice voting can be unclear sometimes. A member can call for Division of the Assembly when there is an unclear divide in the vote. 

Division of Question

• This motion requires a second, is not debatable, can be amended, and requires a majority vote.
• Division of a Question is made when the main motion has two separate motions together. 
• EXAMPLE: Sally says, "I move that the 4-H club buys a new set of flags for the meetings and  club T-shirts for all the members." This motion has two motions: to buy a new set of flags and club T-shirts for all members. The motion needs to be split in two, so a member can call for Division of a Question. 

Suspend the Rules

• This motion requires a second and is not debatable or amendable. It requires a 2/3 vote to suspend a parliamentary order or order of business. It requires a majority vote to suspend the standing rule. 
• The rules of parliamentary order, order or business, or standing rules can be suspended. Any rules in the bylaws or fundamental principles of parliamentary law cannot be suspended. This is done when the assembly wants to do something during the meeting that could not have been done with the rules. 
• EXAMPLE: (This is just one of many) The assembly can suspend the rules to allow multiple people to debate on the motion. 

As you can see, some of these motions are very complex with gray areas. They aren't as straight forward as the subsidiary motions. For more information on these motions, you can visit Robert's Rules of Order 11th Edition pages 247-299.

Erin Yoest

Subsidiary What?

 

This week in AEE 297A we delved further into our Roberts Rules of Order...

 ... and focused on Subsidiary Motions! So, if your anything like me you are probably wondering what exactly this is!

Subsidiary motions are motions that "assist the assembly in treating or disposing of a man motion (and sometimes other motions) (RONR p.62, ln. 34-35). Whew, that is a mouthful. So basically, the SEVEN subsidiary motions allow for business to proceed once a main motion has been stated.

So, what are the seven subsidiary motions?

Well, it is helpful to remember LCLPRAP: A table of the subsidiary motions is detailed below

MOTION	2nd ?	Debate?	Amend?	Vote?
Lay On the Table	Yes	NO	NO	Majority
Call Previous Question	Yes	NO	NO	2/3
Limit/Extend Debate	Yes	NO	Yes	2/3
Postpone Definitely	Yes	Yes	Yes	Majority
Refer to Committee	Yes	Yes	Yes	Majority
Amend	Yes	Yes	Yes	Majority
Postpone Indefinitely	Yes	Yes	NO	Majority

This chart helps us to remember that all seven subsidiary motions require a Second, however, not all of them allow debate and/or amendments. Additionally, the motions to Call Previous Question and Limit/Extend Debate require a 2/3rds vote because it is taking away the right for members to debate, and thus requires more than just the majority!

We also discussed the notion of precedence and pending motions. Just as in solitaire, motions have several layers and it is essential to focus and vote on the top priority motion first. The main motion is lower in precedence than all of the subsidiary motions.

So there you have it, from tables and solitaire we get subsidiary motions!

Thanks for reading,

Cheers,

Sarabeth

Diving Into Parli Pro

So let's catch up on what happened the first week of class...

WE CREATED OUR OWN SYLLABUS!!!

Yes this means content, objectives, grades... the whole nine yards. Kind of sweet, right? We took 2, 1 1/2 hour sessions to develop what we wanted to learn in the class and design our roadmap to the semester. As aspiring agricultural educators we learned some of the road blocks that one runs into when developing a course outline such as "there are not enough weeks to learn what we want too!"

Today was the start of week 2 and according to our syllabus we were to start laying the foundational blocks of parliamentary procedure (parli pro)! So today we learned:

1. The Purpose of Parli Pro

2. The Four Main Principles

3. Characteristics of a Deliberative Assembly

4. Types of Assembly

5. Two Kinds of Rules

The Local Assembly of Organized Society is one of the 5 Types of Assemblies and would include organizations such as 4-H and FFA. Below is a video of a 4-H group demonstrating parli pro terminology that I, of little parli pro knowledge, found helpful to watch as extra foundational layers to my base knowledge of parli pro.