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 ...

, the

motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and m ...

to amend is used to modify another motion. An

amendment An amendment is a formal or official change made to a law, contract, constitution, or other legal document. It is based on the verb to amend, which means to change for better. Amendments can add, remove, or update parts of these agreements. The ...

could itself be amended. A related procedure is filling blanks in a motion.

Explanation and use

Using

Robert's Rules of Order ''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 ...

Newly Revised (RONR), all

main motion 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 detaili ...

s can be amended, by so called "first-order" amendments. A first-order amendment can be amended, by "second-order" amendments. However, the limit is that a second-order amendment may not be amended, because it would be too complicated. Secondary motions that, by their nature, include a variable element, also may be amended. For example, the motion to postpone may be amended as to the length of the postponement; the motion to limit or extend limits of debate may be amended as to the number or length of speeches or the total time to be consumed; and the motion to commit or refer may be amended as to the details of the committee or the time within which the committee must report.

Forms and uses of the motion

The motion to amend takes three basic forms: *Inserting or adding words or paragraphs. *Striking out words or paragraphs. *Striking out words and inserting or adding others, or substituting an entire paragraph or complete resolution for another. A

substitute amendment In parliamentary procedure, a substitute amendment is an amendment that replaces a portion or all of the wording in a proposal. Legislatures In legislatures, a substitute amendment kills a bill by replacing it if the amendment is passed. Legi ...

is an amendment that would replace existing language of a proposal or another amendment with its own. An amendment can be used to water down a motion into a form that is more likely to be accepted or to convert it into a form that is more likely to be rejected.

Procedure

A proposed amendment is treated like many other motions in that it could be debated and voted on. This could be done even in the case of a

friendly amendment In parliamentary procedure, a friendly amendment is an amendment to a motion under debate that is perceived by all parties as an enhancement to the original motion, often only as clarification of intent. The opposite concept is known as a hostile ...

. An amendment could pass with a

majority vote A majority, also called a simple majority or absolute majority to distinguish it from related terms, is more than half of the total.Dictionary definitions of ''majority'' aMerriam-Webster A blank could be created by adopting a motion to create a blank and then members could make suggestions to fill in that blank. This procedure is useful because it allows an unlimited number of suggestions to be voted on as opposed to the limit of allowing only first-order and second-order amendments (i.e. only an amendment to a motion and an amendment to the amendment are allowed). An example are

nomination Nomination is part of the process of selecting a candidate for either election to a public office, or the bestowing of an honor or award. A collection of nominees narrowed from the full list of candidates is a short list. Political office In the ...

s - they are, in effect, proposals to fill in the blank in the motion "that ________ be elected."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amend (Motion) Subsidiary motions

Explanation and use

Forms and uses of the motion

Procedure

See also

References