Bill: Draft Motion Expansion Act

[HatManMC]

CONGRESS OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT​

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A BILL TO
ADD A DEFINED "MOTION FOR DIVISION OF THE QUESTION" AND "MOTION FOR A POINT OF ORDER" TO THE LEGISLATIVE STANDARDS ACT

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The people of the Commonwealth of Redmont, through their elected Representatives in the Congress and the force of law ordained to that Congress by the people through the constitution, do hereby enact the following provisions into law:

PART I: PRELIMINARIES
1. Short Title and Enactment
(1) This Act may be cited as the "Motion Expansion Act" or "MEA".
(2) This Act shall be enacted immediately upon its signage.
(3) This Act has been authored by Speaker HatManMC, with advice from Deputy Speaker EmeraldGuuy and significant source inspiration from Chapter III, 6:17(1) and Chapter III, 6:17(5) of Robert's Rules of Order, 12th Edition.
(4) This Act has been cosponsored by Deputy Speaker EmeraldGuuy.
(5) This Act amends the following Acts:
(a) Legislative Standards Act

2. Reasons and Intent
(1) Oftentimes, when voting on motions to amend, especially bulk ones commonplace in our common society, one may find that they like a certain section of a motion but despise another.
(2) In this case, they are often stuck with completely naying the amendment, even if they support even large parts of it.
(3) In Robert's Rules of Order, 12th Edition, a foundational text of parliamentary procedure from which we draw a lot of inspiration in the motion-making inside the Standing Orders and Legislative Standards Act, the "Motion for Division of the Question" is an exact way to remedy this issue, by allowing (literally) the division of a motion to amend in order to vote on it piecewise.
(4) Additionally, oftentimes a Presiding Officer may make a decision that is against the LSA either through bad intention or by accident.
(5) Also in Robert's Rules of Order, 12th Edition, the Motion for a Point of Order allows a false ruling by the Chair to be brought up to question, helping to keep Presiding Officers accountable and consistent in their application of the Standing Orders and Legislative Standards Act.
(6) This Act serves to add a defined Motion for Division of the Question and Motion for a Point of Orderto the Legislative Standards Act.

PART II: AMENDMENTS
3. Legislative Standards Act
(1) The following amendments shall be inserted after §11(15) of the Legislative Standards Act:

(16) Motion for Division of the Question
(a) A Motion for Division of the Question seeks to split a pending Motion into two or more separate motions along a clear divide in the motion, as to vote on the two separate propositions in the motion independently.

(b) A Motion for Division of the Question may be passed by any congressional chamber independently.

(c) The proposer of the Motion for Division of the Question should clearly define where the divide in the amendment should be made and under what grounds. The Division should not substantially redefine the meaning of any one component of the motion.
(i) For example, one could propose a Motion for Division of the Question to split "Fund the Office of Congressional Affairs an additional $10,000 and the Director of Legislative Affairs an additional $5,000" into "Fund the Office of Congressional Affairs an additional $10,000" and "[fund] the Director of Legislative Affairs an additional $5,000". However, one could not divide the above example into "Fund the Office of Congressional Affairs an additional $10" and "000 and [fund] the Director of Legislative Affairs an additional $5,000."
(ii) The definition of "substantially" shall be defined at the judgement of the Presiding Officer, and any unreasonable Division shall be marked as "Out of Order".

(d) Should the Motion for Division of the Question be proposed regarding a Motion to Amend in the same chamber, the Motion to Amend may be divided independently. However, should the Motion for Division of the Question be passed and the motion divided in a chamber different from where the original Motion to Amend originated, the chamber that originally proposed the motion shall take another vote to reconfirm the surviving portions.
(i) Should a Senate motion be divided in the House and one or both of the resulting divided motions is passed in the House, the Senate would take another vote upon the "new" resulting motions to reconfirm them.

(e) Upon the proposition of a Motion for Division of the Question, voting is paused on the motion that is being divided.

(f) Only Motions to Amend, Motions for Classification, Motions for Declassification, and Motions to Fund may be divided. Any Motion not expressly allowed to be Divided may not be Divided.

(17) Motion for a Point of Order
(a) A Motion for a Point of Order seeks to formally request the Presiding Officer to justify the ruling of a Motion or action "Out of Order" or the Presiding Officer's lack of doing so.

(b) A Motion for a Point of Order does not require "passing" and is not put up to a vote. Instead, it is replied to directly by either Presiding Officer in the relevant Chamber.

(c) Should a Motion for a Point of Order be called on the floor of any Chamber, the Presiding Officer is obligated to respond to it with a citation from either the Legislative Standards Act or the respective Standing Orders of said Chamber as to explain their decision.

(d) A Motion for a Point of Order may only be raised involving a ruling on a Motion to Reconsider, Motion for Urgent Consideration, Motion to Override, or Motion for Division of the Question. Any Motion not expressly allowed to have a Point of Order raised to it may not have a Point of Order raised to it.

(e) Only one Motion for a Point of Order may be raised on any Ruling of "Out of Order" or the lack thereof.

PART III: IMPLEMENTATION
4. Implementation
(1) The Office of Congressional Affairs is authorized to make any changes involving renumbering of sections as a result of edits made in this Act.
5. Provisional Amendments
(1) Should any Act amending the Legislative Standards Act be enacted before the passage and enactment of this Act, the Office of Congressional Affairs is authorized to renumber the section numbers provisioned in this Act in accordance with the newly enacted Act.