Albany Via Media

June 13, 2010

To the Editor:

Some thoughts about the ruling by Father Charles King to call the motion to table out of order at the Diocese of Albany's 142nd Annual Convention on Saturday, June 12, 2010:

The motion made by me was in fact out of order, but not for the reasons Father King, the Diocesan Parliamentarian stated.

He stated that since I participated in the debate directly before I made the motion to table then the motion to table was out of order. I find nothing in Robert's rules of Order to support Father King's interpretation.

It was out of order because of the following, and I believe Father King should known this and have used this as the correct way of denying my motion: Under Robert's Rules of Order, the subsidiary motion to table is properly used only when it is necessary to suspend consideration of a main motion in order to deal with another matter that has come up unexpectedly and which must be dealt with before the pending motion can be properly addressed. This was not the case in this instance.

The correct way I should have presented the motion was to not ask for a “table” but instead to “postpone to a certain date”. That date would have been as stated in the motion “the Diocesan Convention following the 2012 General Convention of The Episcopal Church, our national church.” A postponed question becomes an order of the day for the time to which it is postponed. If a motion to postpone definitely specifies a time that falls after the next regular meeting, or after a certain event which will not occur until after the next regular meeting, then it is treated as a motion to postpone indefinitely, which is the lowest-ranking of the subsidiary motions.

With all of his experiences as parliamentarian it is interesting to note that he made a serious “parliamentarian” mistake.

The bottom line is that when all is said and done any motion to delay the action the 142nd Diocesan Convention took on Proposition #2 was going to be futile but I am glad I made some attempt to stop this Diocesan steamroller.

Joseph M. Liotta