At our City Council meeting, a vote was recently taken which needed 8 of 11 votes to pass, but lost 7 to 4. All the interested parties left the meeting at that time. About an hour later, one of the people who voted “no” moved for a reconsideration of the vote. Under Robert’s rules of order, which our council follows, this is allowed at the meeting of the original vote, or the following meeting. Yesterday, I received a call from a local lawyer(*), who read an article about this in the local paper. He said he believed that the reconsideration vote violated the Michigan Open Meetings Act, since the reconsideration vote was not on the agenda, and hence due notice to the public of the reconsideration vote was not given. Does anyone know if the Open Meetings Act (preferably Michigan’s, but failing that, under any other state) requires notice be given of a reconsideration vote once the results of the original vote have been announced, and the council meeting has moved on? If the answer hasn’t been settled yet, or varies by jurisdiction, that would be good to know also.
(*)The lawyer who called was not looking for business, and did not want to get involved beyond calling me. He said the situation bothered him, and he wanted to let me know it may not have been strictly legal. He said other things our city council has done have bothered him, and I think that was his sole motivation in calling.
IANAParliamentarian, I just have some amateur knowledge.
First, a group’s parliamentary authority is at the bottom of precedence of rules. If the state Open Meetings Act says that a motion to reconsider a vote cannot be held at the same meeting that the vote was taken, then the motion to reconsider is not in order. If the Act is silent on this point, then the council’s rules come into play, and government bodies often have their own special rules of order.
If no rule set of higher precedence addresses the point, then Robert’s Rules (or the other designated parliamentary authority) comes into play.
The question still stands, what does the MI OMA say? (Other states’ acts may be useful and interesting, but do not apply to Michigan.)
Still, it is definitely not good procedure to reconsider a vote after the interested parties have left.
From a parliamentary standpoint, the effect of a successful motion to reconsider (which, as above, must be made by a person who voted on the prevailing side, seconded, and carried by majority vote of the body) is merely to void the results of the last vote and again bring to the floor the motion in question. If the original motion is debatable, then the reconsidered motion is debatable, and so forth. More importantly, a motion to reconsider is not in order if the original motion was the amendment of the Constitution, By-laws, or Rules of Order of the body, or any other rules that require previous notice for their amendment. (See Robert’s Rules Art. VI § 36).
Assuming the Michigan Open Meetings Act is silent on the particular effects of a motion to reconsider, I’d venture that the lawyer was wrong – that is, the motion for reconsideration is part of the ordinary course of business and the publication of the original agenda is sufficient. But that assumes that the reconsideration was applied leggaly – that is, not to one of the prohibited categories I mention above.
If the Michigan law is not silent on the point, then, obviously, what it says goes.
For reference, here is the Open Meetings Act for Michigan.
IANAL, but there does not seem to be instructions on the validity of specific motions. The relevant parts on public notice, Section 3 and Section 4, doesn’t seem to say anything regarding the current situation. Besides stating that public notice must always include name of the public body, address, telephone, etc., it doesn’t seem to specify much else.
Having read Lord_Vykor’s link, is unclear to me what provision of the law was violated by the prosecure described in the OP.