Robert's Rules For Dummies by C. Alan Jennings PRP

Author:C. Alan Jennings, PRP
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2012-06-19T16:00:00+00:00

Object to Consideration of the Question can be applied to only an original main motion. I discuss the difference between original main motions and incidental main motions in Chapter 6.

Objecting to Considering a Question

The following example isn’t the only situation in which this motion comes in handy, but it’s one of those common scenarios that lends itself to describing the motion’s use.

If you’re an active member of an organization and you participate regularly in its meetings, you’ve no doubt encountered Stumpy Neverstops — you know, the guy who shows up at every meeting making the same motion that gets argued and finally voted down. Every meeting, Stumpy batters the hull of his ship. Every month, he persists in introducing his motion, trying to get the group to do something it just doesn’t want to do and isn’t likely to want to do anytime soon.

After a few meetings like this, you’re at your wit’s end. And there’s no end in sight because Robert’s Rules allows Stumpy to make his motion again at every new meeting, even if it failed at a previous meeting — and Stumpy knows no shame. Well, that can all end now. In the following sections, I tell you how to send Stumpy sailing around the reef in his lifeboat while you enjoy a calm sea for a change.

Objection initiated by a member

To use Object to the Consideration of the Question, get to your feet quickly (hopefully as soon as the undesirable motion rolls over the lips of the person offering it) and say, “Mr. Chairman, I object to the consideration of the question.”

Because this motion decides whether to summarily dismiss a motion without consideration, it doesn’t even need a second. The chair just responds with, “The member objects to the consideration of the motion. All in favor of considering the motion will rise. [pause] Opposed, rise. There are two-thirds opposed to considering the motion, and it will not be considered.” It’s all over, Stumpy. Sit down!

Finely tuned quick-draw skills help you any time you need to use object to the consideration. If, for some reason, you need to apply this motion to a subsidiary motion (such as may happen if there’s a motion you really want to discuss and you think that Stumpy’s attempt to postpone or refer it to a committee for the third or fourth time is just a way to delay), you have to be even faster, because it’s too late to object to consideration of a subsidiary motion after the chair has stated the motion.

Objection initiated by the chair

If the chair has a good sense of members’ limits when it comes to likely intolerance for some motions, he may want to offer (on his own initiative) the members the opportunity to object by saying, “It is the sense of the chair that the consideration of this question may have objection. Shall the motion be placed before you for your consideration?”

If a motion is outside the scope of the purposes of the organization, conflicts

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