Robert's Rules of Order, often simply referred to as Robert's Rules, is a manual of parliamentary procedure by U.S. Army officer Henry Martyn Robert. "The object of Rules of Order is to assist an assembly to accomplish the work for which it was designed [...] Where there is no law [...] there is the least of real liberty". The term "Robert's Rules of Order" is also used more generically to refer to any of the more recent editions, by various editors and authors, based on any of Robert's original editions, and the term is used more generically in the United States to refer to parliamentary procedure.
Parliamentary procedure is the accepted rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings of an assembly or organization. Its object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and thus to arrive at the sense or the will of the majority of the assembly upon these questions. Self-governing organizations follow parliamentary procedure to debate and reach group decisions, usually by vote, with the least possible friction.
In parliamentary procedure, a point of order occurs when someone draws attention to a rules violation in a meeting of a deliberative assembly.
The 7th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1801, to March 4, 1803, during the first two years of Thomas Jefferson's presidency. The apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the 1790 United States census. Both chambers had a Democratic-Republican majority, except during the Special session of the Senate, when there was a Federalist majority in the Senate.
The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.
Samuel Dexter was an early American statesman who served both in Congress and in the Presidential Cabinets of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Dexter was an 1781 graduate of Harvard College. After receiving his degree he studied law, attained admission to the bar in 1784, and began to practice in Lunenburg, Massachusetts.
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.
In US parliamentary procedure, the previous question is generally used as a motion to end debate on a pending proposal and bring it to an immediate vote. The meaning of this specialized motion has nothing to do with any question previously considered by the assembly.
The parliamentarian of the United States House of Representatives manages, supervises, and administers the Office of the Parliamentarian, which is responsible for advising the House's presiding officers, members, and staff on procedural questions under the U.S. Constitution and House rules and precedents, as well as for preparing, compiling, and publishing the precedents of the House.
Allan Bowie Magruder was an American poet, historian, lawyer, and politician, who served as a United States Senator from Louisiana from September 3, 1812, to March 3, 1813.
Samuel Harrison Smith was an American journalist and newspaper publisher. He founded the National Intelligencer at Washington in 1800. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1797.
In parliamentary procedure, reconsideration of a motion may be done on a matter previously decided. The motion to "reconsider" is used for this purpose. This motion originated in the United States and is generally not used in parliaments. A special form of this motion is reconsider and enter on the minutes.
In parliamentary procedure, a motion 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, Newly Revised; The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure; or Lord Critine'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 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".
The history of parliamentary procedure refers to the origins and evolution of parliamentary law used by deliberative assemblies.
Bourinot's Rules of Order is a Canadian parliamentary authority originally published in 1894 by Sir John George Bourinot, Clerk of the House of Commons of Canada under the title A Canadian Manual on the Procedure at Meetings of Shareholders and Directors of Companies, Conventions, Societies, and Public Assemblies generally. The title page states that it is an abridgement of the author's larger work, but it should be seen as a shorter re-write, dealing in considerable depth with public meetings outside and separate from the Parliament in Ottawa. The fourth, posthumous, edition of the work was given the cover title of the present article. The document is widely used in Canada to set procedures for formal meetings in government, companies and other organizations.
Erskine May is a parliamentary authority originally written by British constitutional theorist and Clerk of the House of Commons, Thomas Erskine May.
In the United States, a contingent election is used to elect the president or vice president if no candidate receives a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed. A presidential contingent election is decided by a special vote of the United States House of Representatives, while a vice-presidential contingent election is decided by a vote of the United States Senate. During a contingent election in the House, each state delegation votes en bloc to choose the president instead of representatives voting individually. Senators, by contrast, cast votes individually for vice president.
Federal impeachment in the United States is the process by which the House of Representatives brings charges against a civil federal officer, the vice president, or the president for misconduct alleged to have been committed. The United States House of Representatives can impeach a party with a simple majority of the House members present or such other criteria as the House adopts in accordance with Article One, Section 2, Clause 5 of the United States Constitution. Most state legislatures can impeach state officials, including the governor, in accordance with their respective state constitution.
