A quorum is the minimum number of members of a deliberative assembly necessary to conduct the business of that group. According to Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, the "requirement for a quorum is protection against totally unrepresentative action in the name of the body by an unduly small number of persons." In contrast, a plenum is a meeting of the full body. A body, or a meeting or vote of it, is quorate if a quorum is present.
The Congress of the Philippines is the legislature of the national government of the Philippines. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, although colloquially the term "Congress" commonly refers to just the latter, and an upper body, the Senate. The House of Representatives meets in the Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City while the Senate meets in the GSIS Building in Pasay.
In parliamentary procedure, an adjournment ends a meeting. It could be done using a motion to adjourn. A time for another meeting could be set using the motion to fix the time to which to adjourn.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (LACBOS) is the five-member governing body of Los Angeles County, California, United States.
An agenda is a list of meeting activities in the order in which they are to be taken up, beginning with the call to order and ending with adjournment. It usually includes one or more specific items of business to be acted upon. It may, but is not required to, include specific times for one or more activities. An agenda may also be called a docket, schedule, or calendar. It may also contain a listing of an order of business.
A gavel is a small ceremonial mallet commonly made of hardwood, typically fashioned with a handle. It can be used to call for attention or to punctuate rulings and proclamations and is a symbol of the authority and right to act officially in the capacity of a presiding officer. It is often struck against a sound block, a striking surface typically also made of hardwood, to enhance its sounding qualities. According to tradition, Vice President of the United States John Adams used a gavel as a call to order in the first U.S. Senate in New York in 1789. Since then, it has remained customary to tap the gavel against a lectern or desk to indicate the opening and closing of proceedings and, in the United States, to indicate that a judge’s decision is final. It is also used to keep the meeting itself calm and orderly.
In parliamentary procedure, unanimous consent, also known as general consent, or in the case of the parliaments under the Westminster system, leave of the house, is a situation in which no member present objects to a proposal.
A parliamentary authority is a book of rules for conducting business in deliberative assemblies. Several different books have been used by legislative assemblies and by organizations' deliberative bodies.
The government of Alabama is organized under the provisions of the 1901 Constitution of Alabama, the lengthiest constitution of any political entity in the world. Like other states within the United States, Alabama's government is divided into executive, judicial, and legislative branches. Also like any other state, these three branches serve a specific purpose in terms of power.
The United States Senate has the authority for meeting in closed session, as described in the Standing Rules of the Senate.
The Standing Rules of the Senate are the parliamentary procedures adopted by the United States Senate that govern its procedure. The Senate's power to establish rules derives from Article One, Section 5 of the United States Constitution: "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings ..."
In the Congress of the United States, a closed session is a parliamentary procedure for the Senate or the House of Representatives to discuss matters requiring secrecy.
The United States House of Representatives rarely meets in closed session.
In certain countries, a motion in parliamentary procedure is a formal proposal by a member of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take certain action. Such motions, and the form they take are specified by the deliberate assembly and/or a pre-agreed volume detailing parliamentary procedure, such as Robert's Rules of Order; The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure; or Lord Citrine's The ABC of Chairmanship. Motions are used in conducting business in almost all legislative bodies worldwide, and are used in meetings of many church vestries, corporate boards, and fraternal organizations.
In the United States, a parliamentarian is an expert on parliamentary procedure who advises organizations and deliberative assemblies. This sense of the term "parliamentarian" is distinct from the usage in parliamentary republics and monarchies as a synonym for member of parliament.
In United States parliamentary procedure, a suspension of the rules allows a deliberative assembly to set aside its normal rules to do something that it could not do otherwise. However, there are rules that cannot be suspended.
Debate in parliamentary procedure refers to discussion on the merits of a pending question; that is, whether it should or should not be agreed to. It is also commonly referred to as "discussion".
In parliamentary procedure, the verb to table has the opposite meaning in the United States from that of the rest of the world:
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
According to Robert's Rules of Order, a widely used guide to parliamentary procedure, a meeting is a gathering of a group of people to make decisions. This sense of "meeting" may be different from the general sense in that a meeting in general may not necessarily be conducted for the purpose of making decisions.
