RE: [council] Amendments to GNSO Council Motions

["Reed, Daniel A" <dan-reed@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks, Jonathan.  What you describe is standard parliamentary procedure

From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Jonathan Robinson
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 11:58 AM
To: council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [council] Amendments to GNSO Council Motions

All,

During the last GNSO Council meeting, we dealt with the issue of amendments to 
motions that were considered 'unfriendly'. Having checked the GNSO Operating 
Procedures, I see that the practice that has been used by the Council over the 
last few years is actually not incorporated there.

The question therefore is whether this should be the case or whether we are 
comfortable with leaving this as a practice? Any amendments to motions that are 
not considered friendly by the original maker of the motion (and the seconder?) 
are currently submitted to a simple majority vote.  If the vote passes, the 
motion is amended accordingly and if not, the proposed amendment is discarded. 
If we do believe this should be incorporated into the GNSO Operating 
Procedures, one option would be to pass this on as a narrowly scoped issue to 
the SCI.  Alternatively, mark this as one of the items that needs to go on the 
list of items that will need to be addressed when the recommendations of the 
upcoming GNSO Review are implemented.

Should the Council wish to pass this on to the SCI, it could be scoped along 
the following lines:

'The GNSO Council has a standing practice of considering formally proposed 
amendments to motions by requesting the maker (and the seconder) of the motion 
to consider whether or not the proposed amendment is considered 'friendly'. If 
the amendment is considered 'friendly' by the maker of the motion and the 
seconder, the motion is amended accordingly and the amended motion is then 
considered by the GNSO Council. If the proposed amendment is not considered 
'friendly' by the maker of the motion the proposed amendment is put to a vote 
(if the seconder objects, he/she may choose to withdraw their name as the 
seconder of the motion). If it meets the simple majority threshold, the motion 
is amended accordingly and the amended motion is then considered by the GNSO 
Council. If it does not meet the simple majority threshold, the amendment is 
discarded and the original motion is then considered by the GNSO Council. The 
GNSO Council would like to incorporate this practice into the GNSO Operating 
Procedures and as such requests the SCI to propose the appropriate language as 
well as section in order to do so'.

I look forward to any feedback you may wish to provide on the above.

In addition, the formal definition of the role of a seconder of a motion may 
need some work but I suggest we deal first with the issue of motion amendments.

Thanks.


Jonathan