All resolutions up for debate at a General Meeting must be submitted to the LPC at least fourteen days prior to the meeting. The LPC will make sure that the resolution is in order with Roberts Rules, the Local’s Bylaws, and the Local’s Standing Rules.
Only resolutions with five or more co-sponsor signatures shall be considered at a General Meeting.
No fewer than eleven days prior to the meeting, the LPC shall inform resolution authors if their resolution is out of order. The authors shall have two days to resubmit their resolutions to bring them in order. The LPC will make sure that the resubmitted resolution is in order with Roberts Rules, the Local’s Bylaws, and the Local’s Standing Rules
A General Meeting packet shall be published seven days prior to the meeting.
Amendments to resolutions should be submitted to the LPC at least four days prior to the meeting. The LPC will make sure that the resolution as amended is in order with Roberts Rules, the Philly DSA Bylaws, and the Philly DSA Standing Rules.
The full General Meeting packet with all business planned for the memberships' consideration shall be published no fewer than 48 hours prior to the meeting.
Enabling resolutions for campaigns must specify a (a) specific, winnable political goal related to the purposes of the Local (b) a plan to reach that goal, specifying the role of the Local (c) a termination date for the campaign (d) a proposed budget, and (e) a recruitment plan. Enabling resolutions should specify how the campaign will strengthen the Local and advance its purposes.
During debate members are asked to be respectful and comradely towards each other. Please confine comments to the merits of the matter being discussed.
The chair will introduce resolutions to be debated as laid out by the order of the agenda with full title and number so that members may follow along in the packet. The chair will introduce a new resolution as a main motion and introduce an author of the resolution to present its content. The author will then have three minutes of speaking time. After this the body will move into debating the resolution.
All speakers whether in debate or from the floor should state their name.
In the event that there is an amendment to the resolution, immediately after the main resolution is introduced, the chair will call up an author of the amendment to speak about its content. The author will have two minutes to introduce their amendment. The body will then move directly into debating the amendment. After a vote is taken on the amendment, the body will move directly into debating the main motion.
Any motion that requires debate will be allowed to have three speakers for and against. After three speakers for each side, in the absence of alternating for and against speakers, debate is exhausted and the chair will ask for points or motions, at which time members can motion to extend speakers for and against (by a definite number of speakers), call the question, etc.
If the meeting is approaching the scheduled adjournment time, the chair will ask the membership if it would like to refer agenda items to the LPC for a vote or table agenda items for the following General Meeting.
Requests for agenda items: A member can request to add an item to the LPC agenda. Such requests must be sent no fewer than 72 hours ahead of the LPC meeting or they are not guaranteed consideration.
Committees are required to have a written detailed report of their activities in time for the Local Convention each year. Committees will present an abridged version of this report each year at convention.
Quarterly, Committees will be asked to give a less detailed report delivered to the Secretaries of the LPC via emailing the chapter gmail - [email protected].
Secretaries are required to send out a reminder for all reports 45 days in advance and deposit all reports in the chapters google drive.
Committees and Working Groups will submit their membership standards as a separate document linked on their quarterly reports. These standards can be updated alongside reports, quarterly, or by sending an updated document to the secretaries. This should be done by emailing the chapter gmail - [email protected].
Any Committee or Working Group that does not submit membership standards will default to the equivalent of the membership standards stipulated for the Electoral Committee by Article V, Section 3, Subsection 2: “a person must (a) be a member in good standing of the Local (b) have attended at least two meetings of the [Committee or Working Group] in the last one hundred and eighty days and (c) indicate in writing to the co-Chairs of the [Committee or Working Group] that the person wishes to join the [Committee or Working Group]. A member fulfilling these criteria may vote on proceedings of the [Committee or Working Group] beginning thirty days after their request is submitted.“
All projects and bodies of the Local will work with the Communications Committee to ensure access and promotion of events and initiatives. All open events held by a body of the Local must be submitted for posting to the Philly DSA website events page and google calendar. An open event is one that is open to the membership and/or general public. If an event is posted on another public site, including social media, it should also be posted to phillydsa.org.
Projects and bodies of the Local may create their own websites to organize and convey information to members. Such sites should be made available to both the Communications Committee and full chapter membership via an official chapter platform such as Slack, or be linked through the chapter website. All official social media for projects and bodies of the Local must be coordinated with the Communications Committee. This does not include personal promotion of events or messaging.
Committees of the Local will receive priority for usage of Chapter tools and platforms which are limited in use (such as Spoke messaging). Committees will also receive higher priority for budget allocations in coordination with and at the discretion of the Treasurer based on proposed needs.
LPC quorum must be reached in the thread and each LPC member who motions, seconds, or votes will count toward that quorum. Once quorum is reached and once the number of yes votes exceeds the threshold for passing the motion (be that simple majority, two thirds, etc) it passes as the outstanding votes will not be able to affect the outcome, mathematically.
While a motion and second are not formally considered “yes” votes by RONR, it will be assumed that the member is in favor unless the member takes the step of casting a deliberate “no” vote. In this case of a motion maker or second voting “no”, the member will be counted only as “no” vote and will not contribute toward the threshold for passing.
Isn’t it time to do something? Get involved with the Local.
