[Lnc-business] understanding previous notice

[Alicia Mattson]

As Nick mentioned, there's an approaching deadline on Sept 6 for providing
previous notice for the upcoming LNC meeting.

For those of you who may not be quite as familiar with some of the nuances
of Robert's Rules, I thought it might be helpful for me to give a brief
explanation of the effect of previous notice.

As the name implies, previous notice is letting voting members know in
advance that you intend to make a particular motion.  Policy Manual Section
1.02.1 explains how one can give previous notice (overriding the default
rule in Robert's).  The policy says that you can give previous notice by
announcing it at the previous LNC meeting, or sending the *complete
language* of the motion to the *entire* LNC by email at least 14 days prior
to the session, or conducting the vote by email ballot.

For many of the things we do (new business on a non-parliamentary subject)
giving previous notice often makes no difference in terms of parliamentary
procedure, and the motions only require a majority vote to adopt.

Our bylaws create an exception for the case of public policy resolutions.
If you want the LNC to adopt a public policy resolution (Joshua, your
Common Core resolution would be subject to this), previous notice makes a
big difference.  LP Bylaws Article 8.11 says that the LNC can adopt public
policy resolutions by a 3/4 vote with previous notice or by unanimous
consent without previous notice.

SIDE NOTE:  The rationale for adopting that bylaw was to encourage the LNC
to focus on party management duties rather than spending our limited time
together writing essays which likely will have little actual impact on
public policy.

Even if previous notice isn't required, it may be a good idea to do it
anyway, as Norm has done with his proposal regarding the 2018 convention.
Depending on the subject matter or the complexity of it, it may increase
the chances for passage if you show people the motion in advance and give
them time to think about it.  Some people don't like to be rushed into
quick decisions.  Giving previous notice also means that people have time
to gather any facts/questions needed for the discussion so we can have
meatier debate and make better decisions.  Sometimes the feedback you get
in advance can help us get through the subject faster, agree on amendments
faster, etc. once we get into the in-person meeting.

What does require previous notice?  Motions that have the effect of
changing or nullifying previous action of the assembly - such as the motion
to Rescind or to Amend Something Previously Adopted are the things we most
commonly encounter that require previous notice *if they are to be adopted
by only a majority vote.*

Failure to provide previous notice doesn't mean you can't make the motion
at all during the meeting, but it MAY result in a higher vote threshold
being required for it to pass, depending on what it is you want to change,
how many people have attended the meeting, and how many of those present
choose to vote.

To pass a motion to amend something we have previously adopted (in
general), we need one of the following vote results:
a) majority vote with previous notice, or
b) two-thirds of those present and voting, or
c) a majority of all the members of the board.  With 17 LNC members, it
would take 9 affirmative votes to meet this threshold, even if only 12 are
attending, even if a large number of people abstain.  9 votes.

If you want to amend the Policy Manual, make sure you reference the intro
to that section of the manual to see what the rules are for amendment.  As
explained before, the policy manual is divided into sections based on what
type of rule it is, and different types of rules have different
requirements for adoption/amendment.  If it's in the special rule of order
section, amendment requires:
a) previous notice AND a two-thirds vote, or
b) majority of all the members of the board (so 9 votes).

There are logical reasons behind the previous notice requirements, but I'll
spare you the theory lecture.

This is not complete coverage of the topic of previous notice, but it's a
decent intro to the things you'll typically encounter with the LNC.

-Alicia
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20140904/1845e755/attachment-0001.html>