Re: PAC: Schedule and AIs for this cycle

[Jon Bosak <Jon.Bosak@eng.sun.com>]

[tallen@sonic.net:]

| Jon wrote:
| | [Robin Cover:]
| | 
| | | Why "business days"?  Suppose it's Fri-Sat-Sun?  (viz., are
| | | weekend days "business days"?)
| | 
| | No, they're not -- and that's the point.  I think I picked up the
| | phrase "business days" from Robert's.  My first impulse was to
| | replace it with something more precise: weekdays.  But then I
| | thought, No, what about holidays.  But the definition of "holiday"
| | is going to be different depending on where you are... So the more
| | I thought about it, the more I realized (a) that "business days"
| | is precisely the legal phrase for the concept we want, and (b)
| | that its slight ambiguity (or shall we say, context-sensitivity)
| | is necessary to accommodate cultural differences.
| 
| What about the case where Wednesday is a holiday in France,
| Thursday a holiday in England, and neither is holiday in the U.S.?

This is why it won't work to substitute something like "x days
(not counting weekends and holidays)" for "x business days".  It
just pushes the question of what constitutes a non-business day
onto the word "holiday".

| | Oddly, the term "business day" is not defined in any of my large
| | dictionaries, but having just been through several months of
| | househunting during which I've plowed through multiple sets of
| | real estate contracts, I can testify that the concept of a
| | "business day" is quite well established.
| 
| In any given jurisdiction, yes.  

Right.  It's always going to be up to the individual TC to figure
out what constitutes a non-business day.  But we don't make this
any clearer by shuffling that pea around under the shell of a
different term (such as "holiday").

| | | "immediate succession"  -  What if a TC meets Fri, Sun, and 
| | | Tues of a conference week?
| | 
| | Then you fall through to the considerably more complicated rules
| | governing the meaning of a "session" in Robert's.  The language
| | I'm suggesting merely makes explicit the simple rule governing the
| | easy case: if the meeting adjourns to the business day immediately
| | following, you're still in the same session.  The case where other
| | business days intervene is much harder, but it's all covered in
| | Robert's.
| 
| Where?  pp. 82-89 do not appear to be more specfic than that 
| a session is a meeting or series of connected meetings (p. 83 top).

I was working from section 63 of RROR, which (since it's online) I
can quote here.  I have a little more to say at the end.

   63. A Session of an assembly is a meeting which, though it may
   last for days, is virtually one meeting, as a session of a
   convention; or even months, as a session of Congress; it
   terminates by an "adjournment sine die (without day)." The
   intermediate adjournments from day to day, or the recesses
   taken during the day, do not destroy the continuity of the
   meetings, which in reality constitute one session. Any meeting
   which is not an adjournment of another meeting commences a new
   session. In the case of a permanent society, whose by-laws
   provide for regular meetings every week, month, or year, for
   example, each meeting constitutes a separate session of the
   society, which session, however, can be prolonged by adjourning
   to another day.

   In this Manual the term Meeting is used to denote an assembling
   of the members of a deliberative assembly for any length of
   time, during which there is no separation of the members except
   for a recess of a few minutes, as the morning meetings, the
   afternoon meetings, and the evening meetings, of a convention
   whose session lasts for days. A "meeting" of an assembly is
   terminated by a temporary adjournment or a recess for a meal,
   etc.; a "session" of an assembly ends with an adjournment
   without day, and may consist of many meetings. So an
   adjournment to meet again at some other time, even the same
   day, unless it was for only a few minutes, terminates the
   meeting, but not the session, which latter includes all the
   adjourned meetings. The next meeting, in this case, would be an
   "adjourned meeting" of the same session.

   In ordinary practice a meeting is closed by moving simply "to
   adjourn;" the society meets again at the time provided either
   by the rules or by a resolution of the society. If it does not
   meet till the time for the next regular meeting as provided in
   the by-laws, then the adjournment closes the session, and was
   in effect an adjournment without day. If, however, it had
   previously fixed the time for the next meeting, either by a
   direct vote or by adopting a program of exercise covering
   several meetings, or even days, in either case the adjournment
   is in effect to a certain time, and while closing the meeting
   does not close the session.

   In such common expressions as quarterly meeting and annual
   meeting the word meeting is used in the sense of the
   parliamentary session, and covers all the adjourned
   meetings. Thus, business that legally must be done at the
   annual meeting may be done at any time during the session
   beginning at the time specified for the annual meeting, though
   the session, by repeated adjournments, may last for days. The
   business may be postponed to the next regular meeting, if
   desired.

   Under Renewal of Motions [38] is explained what motions can be
   repeated during the same session, and also the circumstances
   under which certain motions cannot be renewed until after the
   close of the next succeeding session.

   A rule or resolution of a permanent nature may be adopted by a
   majority vote at any session of a society, and it will continue
   in force until it is rescinded. But such a standing rule does
   not materially interfere with the rights of a future session,
   as by a majority vote it may be suspended so far as it affects
   that session; and, it may be rescinded by a majority vote, if
   notice of the proposed action was given at a previous meeting,
   or in the notice of the meeting; or, without any notice, it may
   be rescinded by a majority of the entire membership, or by a
   two-thirds vote. If it is desired to give greater stability to
   a rule it is necessary to place it in the constitution by-laws,
   or rules of order, all of which are so guarded by requiring
   notice of amendments, and at least a two-thirds vote for their
   adoption, that they are not subject to sudden changes, and may
   be considered as expressing the deliberate views of the whole
   society, rather than the opinions or wishes of any particular
   meeting.

   In case of the illness of the presiding officer the assembly
   cannot elect a chairman pro tem. to hold office beyond the
   session, unless notice of the election was given at the
   previous meeting or in the call for this meeting. So it is
   improper for an assembly to postpone anything to a day beyond
   the next succeeding session, and thus attempt to prevent the
   next session from considering the question. On the other hand,
   it is not permitted to move the reconsideration of a vote taken
   at a previous session, though the motion to reconsider can be
   called up, provided it was made during the previous session in
   a society having meetings as often as quarterly. Committees can
   be appointed to report at a future session.

   NOTE ON SESSION. -- In Congress, and in fact all legislative
   bodies, the limits of the sessions are clearly defined; but in
   ordinary societies having a permanent existence, with regular
   meetings more or less frequent, there appears to be some
   confusion upon the subject. Any society is competent to decide
   what shall constitute one of its sessions, but, where there is
   no rule on the subject, the common parliamentary law would make
   each of its regular or special meetings a separate session, as
   they are regarded in this Manual.

   The disadvantages of a rule making a session include all the
   meetings of an ordinary society, held during a long time, as
   one year, are very great. If an objection to the consideration
   of a question as been sustained, or if a question has been
   adopted, or rejected, or postponed indefinitely, the question
   cannot again be brought before the assembly for its
   consideration during the same session. If a session lasted for
   a long period, a temporary majority could forestall the
   permanent majority, and introduce and act on a number of
   questions favored by the majority, and thus prevent the society
   from dealing with those subjects for the long period of the
   session. If members of any society take advantage of the
   freedom allowed by considering each regular meeting a separate
   session, and repeatedly renew obnoxious or unprofitable
   motions, the society can adopt a rule prohibiting the second
   introduction of any main question within, say, three months
   after its rejection, or indefinite postponement, or after the
   society has refused to consider it. But generally it is better
   to suppress the motion by refusing to consider it [23].

The intended effect of the proposed language making a meeting over
several successive days a single session was to make it
unnecessary for a TC to distinguish levels of adjournment in the
simple case.  Does this not work?

Jon