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 ...

in the United States, a motion to postpone to a certain time (or postpone definitely or postpone) is used to delay action on a pending question until a different day,

meeting A meeting is when two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal or business setting, but meetings also occur in a variety of other environments. Meetings can be used as form of group decision making. Defini ...

, hour or until after a certain event. Then, when that time comes, the consideration of the question is picked up where it was left off when it was postponed.

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), action on a pending question may be postponed to another time. Alternatively, a motion can be postponed until after a specific event has occurred, such as after an officer makes a relevant report. A postponed question becomes an order of the day (a general order or a special order in the

order of business 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 r ...

) for the time to which it is postponed. Postponing a motion is permitted so long as: *There is a meeting on the date the motion is postponed to. For example, a main motion cannot be postponed to a day where there is no regular meeting or where a special meeting has not been planned yet. *The date to which the main motion is being postponed is not too late for it to be effective. For example, if the main motion proposes that there be a picnic on September 3, the motion cannot be postponed to September 5, because that would be too late for it to be carried out. Under Demeter's Manual, if a motion to postpone definitely specifies a time that falls after the next regular meeting, or after a certain event which will not occur until after the next regular meeting, then it is treated as a motion to

postpone indefinitely In parliamentary procedure, the motion to postpone indefinitely is a subsidiary motion used to kill a main motion without taking a direct vote on it. This motion does not actually "postpone" it. Explanation and use In '' Robert's Rules of Orde ...

, which effectively ends consideration of the pending question. A motion to postpone an action or event that was previously scheduled is distinct from the subsidiary motion to postpone to a certain time, and is a type of the motion to

amend something previously adopted A repeal (O.F. ''rapel'', modern ''rappel'', from ''rapeler'', ''rappeler'', revoke, ''re'' and ''appeler'', appeal) is the removal or reversal of a law. There are two basic types of repeal; a repeal with a re-enactment is used to replace the law ...

. Generally, a motion to postpone is applied to a

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 ...

and not to other motions alone. Debate on the motion to postpone to a certain time should be brief and confined only to the reasons for and time of the postponement. Amendments to it may only relate to the desired date that the assembly will resume consideration or if the question is to be a special order.

The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure ''The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure'' (formerly the ''Sturgis Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure'' by Alice Sturgis) is a book of rules of order. It is the second most popular parliamentary authority in the United States after ...

(TSC) treats the motion to postpone to a certain time similar to that in RONR. A difference is that TSC does not allow this motion to be reconsidered.

Improper use of tabling a motion

Frequently, a motion is improperly " tabled" until the next meeting. In this case, the proper procedure would have been to postpone the motion to the next meeting.

References

{{Parliamentary Procedure