Submitted by Richard Harrison
Navigating the River -- Amendments to Motions in Motion
Once a motion has been made and seconded, it belongs to everyone. We're all involved in deciding whether the group as a whole is in favour of the motion or opposed to it, and the floor is open to anyone to speak for or against it. The meeting facilitator keeps a speaker's list, and also keeps the discussion on track by making sure that everyone addresses the issue under discussion. According to Robert's Rules, after everyone has spoken, the person who made the motion gets the chance to speak to it last. Then we vote.
There are variations on this pattern, and the facilitators at Co-op meetings have often invited the maker of the motion to speak to an issue as it arises in the middle of a discussion to clarify a point or answer a specific question. This can help clarify the motion as long as this question-and-answer doesn't go too far from the main point, and so most facilitators will not only allow it but help guide the discussion that way if it is needed.
That's the core of the process: motion made, motion seconded, motion discussed, voted on and either passed or not.
But we can also be involved in crafting the motion while we are discussing it. Sometimes considerations of fact or of wording come up in the discussion, and in their light we want to suggest changes to the motion so that its wording better reflects what the motion really means in terms of the actions that will follow from it if it is passed. And so new wording can be suggested for the motion and discussed by the group as an Amendment to the Motion.
In terms of Robert's Rules, an amendment to a motion is actually another motion made while a first motion is under discussion. So, like the motion it is amending, it, too, needs a mover, a seconder, a discussion and a vote. When an amendment is made, we stop discussing the first motion, and move to discussing the amendment. If the amendment is passed, we go back to the first motion and discuss it in its amended form. If the amendment is not passed, the discussion goes back to the first motion as it was at the beginning.
The amendment process makes it a lot easier to let motions benefit from the discussion as it progresses. It allows the group to act as editors of the motion's wording as well as judges of its worth, and it's much easier than defeating motions, and then discussing other motions that are close to them but not exactly the same.
The one area that gets a bit fuzzy in the process is “The Friendly Amendment.” In practice, meetings sometimes try to treat an amendment that the original motion's maker agrees with as "friendly," but almost none of those amendments, even when the original mover likes them, actually are or should be treated that way. An amendment is a change, and almost all changes make a difference.
So if a motion belongs to everyone, which it does, it shouldn't be changed without everyone's consent. The way that consent is achieved in a meeting is by a motion made, seconded, discussed, and voted on. Even if the original mover objects to an amendment, if the group votes to pass it, then the motion is amended. Normally this doesn't happen. Normally an amendment is designed to refine a motion in keeping with its original purpose, and so normally the amending process doesn't contradict the motion, but we still need to go through the process of voting on amendments so that the actual motion in its entirety belongs to all of us.
Still, "Friendly Amendment" does mean something, and it has an important use. A friendly amendment is one that doesn't change the meaning of the motion but makes a minor correction to its grammar or occasionally word choice so that it says what the mover wants it to. Things like, "there should be a comma here," or “the word ‘affect’ should be ‘effect’ in the original wording,” are friendly amendments. Usually the facilitator rules on such amendments, and usually the original mover is fine with them.
And as small as such changes might seem, I'm an English professor, and I've seen (as I'm sure anyone dealing with contracts, or law, or advertising -- any business that involves getting the wording right will tell you they've seen too), I've seen arguments over commas go a full half hour or more. The friendly amendment spares us all that and helps us get on with the job, something any friend would do.