by I already wrote about the “we love Wayne” resolution that was passed at the 2022 NRA Meeting of Members. That was the first resolution considered and was intended to run out the clock. As far as the powers that be are concerned, no discussion of matters concerning the NRA and its operations is good discussion.
By my count, there were a total of 12 resolutions. The first was the “we love Wayne” resolution, eight that were ruled out of order, two were allowed to come to a vote, and one that Jeff Knox withdrew.
Robert Rhyne and Mitchell Martin introduced seven resolutions. They were resolutions two through eight. Each and every one of their resolutions was ruled by Charles Cotton to be “out of order” and were not considered. Mr. Rhyne was kind enough to send me copies of his resolutions and I will post them.
Mr. Rhyne is from Arkansas and appeared to me to be the solid, salt of the earth type of NRA member who just got fed up with the “Beltway Bandits”.
The first resolution called for settlement of the lawsuit brought by NY Attorney General Letitia James. The second said that after settlement, the NRA should be reincorporated in Texas.
NRA-res-1 NRA-res-2
Were any details provided by the Chair regarding “reasons for declaring out of order”? Robert’s Rules has only a limited number of reasons that a motion can be declared out of order that I remember, things like outside the scope of the board’s authority, conflicts with law, presents the same question that was already dealt with in the same board meeting, etc.
Pretty sure that these would be fall under those issues. The reincorporation issue would effectively dissolve the organization – that’s why they tried to play legal games in the bankruptcy courts to do it. They can’t just pick up and move like that. (They could move headquarters, but the second resolution requires the corporate charter to end in NY and restart in TX. Huge legal problems with that.
Also, the first resolution is impossible. While the judge has (for now) taken dissolution off of the table, this also bans the payment of fines that could be interpreted as harming the institution. At this point, the loss of any money is a harm to the institution since they keep losing donors.
I’m also suspicious because none of their resolutions actually address the issues of cleaning up the organization where it’s really losing money and cases. Settling the cases doesn’t remove Bill Brewer from the picture. In fact, many of the other resolutions by these folks would actually give him more influence by removing leaders so that only one man has control, removing the ability for NRA to pay people closer to market rates in salary (but no limit on how much they pay to outside vendors to do the same work), or limiting how much one outside vendor can take over in services and work for the organization.
Yeah, the more I think about their series of resolutions, I seriously question the intent. When not blatantly a violation of the bylaws, they are meant to weaken what little member oversight there is and kneecap NRA’s ability to work on a nationwide scale.
If I remember correctly, conflicts with the bylaws or that it was an ongoing legal case was the reason it was ruled out of order. They did not want to say anything that could be used in the NY case.
Thanks Bitter. I’m pretty frustrated about the whole thing and running out of reasons to believe it will ever be resolved in favor of the members, unless the court chucks out the leadership and does something (which I have no idea if they can even do). The board structure seems to be designed to prevent any changes and the membership seems to either have a) no power whatsoever or b) the power to propose changes as you have described above that won’t help and might hurt.
The court can order a pretty significant change, and I believe that they would be within their authority to order removal of all Board members and leadership who engaged in, supported, or helped hide these various legal issues. I hate to say it, but it’s up to the NY courts to save NRA now. In fact, the biggest reason to get Frank Tait on the Board wasn’t because he could outvote the incumbents, but to give more legal standing to someone willing to step up and fight for the organization.
At this point, the only way for anything to change other than court order is for someone currently on the Board to resign so that Frank Tait automatically takes their seat. The sooner, the better.