While a member is speaking, no other member is allowed to stand, unless the speaker, on being appealed to, permits an interruption for the purpose of asking a question or making a correction. But a speaker who is using discourteous or improper language may be “called to order,” as will be explained later.
A member has no right to remain standing while another is speaking, with the idea of preëmpting the next recognition from the chairman; the chair should not recognize a member unless he rose after the preceding speaker had finished. When a member has once spoken to a motion, he has no right to take the floor again, as long as any other member wishes to be heard, except to make one of the subsidiary, incidental, or privileged motions above referred to.
Those motions all supersede the consideration of the main motion. When a subsidiary motion is made, the main motion is laid aside until the subsidiary has been acted upon. When one of the incidental motions is made, the main motion or any subsidiary motions must be laid aside until the incidental motion is disposed of. The privileged motions displace any of the others from consideration. Only one thing at a time may be before the “house.”
A. The SUBSIDIARY MOTIONS, all concerned with perfecting or advancing the disposition of a main motion, are these:
(a) Amendment.—Any main motion is open to amendment, and any amendment is open to further amendment. The amendment may be by adding words or phrases, by eliminating words or phrases, or by the substitution of certain words for some in the original motion. Any number of amendments may be offered; only one at a time can be considered. When an amendment to an amendment is offered, it displaces the amendment from consideration, just as the first amendment displaced the original motion.
An amendment ought not to be offered in a negative form; it is a good plan, when that is done, to amend it at once to a positive form, so that there shall be no misunderstanding when it comes to a vote. It is confusing when the vote “Aye” means not to do a certain thing, and the vote “No” means to do it.
The amendment must also conform to the subject-matter of the main motion. The chairman must rule “out of order” an amendment that tries to introduce an entirely different subject. The question on an amendment is put just as it is on a main motion, but the chairman should be careful to repeat the whole motion, with the proposed amendment, so that all may understand what they are voting on.
(b) Indefinite Postponement.—At any time when the main motion alone is before the assembly, a motion to postpone its consideration indefinitely is in order. This motion is open to debate, and if carried, makes any further discussion of the main motion impossible at that session; and at a later session it can be brought in only as “new business,” as if it had never been proposed before.
(c) To Commit.—At any time when a motion or an amendment is under discussion, a motion to refer to a committee may be made. In most legislative bodies this is the immediate fate of almost every motion of importance; in clubs and similar organizations, matters that require investigation and special information are properly referred to a committee. The motion is debatable and open to amendment—usually as to the number of the committee, or the time when a report shall be made. If the reference is to a special, and not a “standing” committee, the chairman, when the choice is left to him, often appoints the member who proposed the reference, chairman, although he need not do so unless he chooses.
When a committee has prepared and presented its report, the chairman moves its adoption—if it makes any specific proposition or recommendation. Reports which merely state facts or “report progress” are “accepted,” not “adopted.” A committee, after making its final report, is ipso facto discharged. But a formal motion to discharge a committee may be made and entertained at its own request, or in case of a partial report or unsatisfactory performance of its duties.