The Editor: The suggestion, and that is what it is right now for Texas LULAC, because the proposed rules for the 2014 Texas LULAC Convention were never submitted through a rules committee and never voted on by the Texas LULAC Board, is based on nothing more than an illegal tactic. What is so legal about the Election Judge calling for a vote on candidates running for a state LULAC office and calling out the outcome of the vote that would need the Legal Advisor's "legal opinion?" What legal argument is being made by anyone that requires the Legal Advisor to opinionate on? Does the Legal Advisor have better eyes?.. because that what the vote is all about when you are engaging the general Assembly with a roll call?
The LULAC Constitution, Bylaws and Protocol states that the role of the legal advisor in LULAC is to represent LULAC in legal matters, to advice the Board on legal matters, to update the LULAC manuals related to its Constitution, Bylaws and Protocol, resolutions and policies and to provide counsel to LULAC entities, as needed and requested.
The LULAC Constitution, Bylaws and Protocol has no other role for the Legal Advisor.
The Rules Committee at any level in LULAC cannot invent a role for the legal advisor that is not in the LULAC Constitution, Bylaws and Protocol.
The LULAC executive committee or its boards cannot invent a role for the legal advisor that is not in the LULAC Constitution, Bylaws and Protocol.
The LULAC National General Assembly is the only authority that can expand, change or modify the role of the LULAC legal advisor at any level of the organization.
Rule 13 proposed by Elia Mendoza for the 2014 Texas LULAC Convention is illegal, an d is presented below:
13. Challenges to any election must be issued to the State Legal Advisor immediately after the outcome is announced and before another election has begun. It shall take, as per Robert’s Rules of Order (revised), a two-thirds vote to overturn all rulings made by the State Legal Advisor.
The General Assembly of LULAC at the National, State and District level is the ultimate authority regarding the voting methods to be used by the General Assembly in conducting its elections.
That authority is granted to it by the LULAC Constitution, Bylaws and Protocol in Subsection d of Section 5 of Article VIII stating that:
"[v]oting in National [ state, district, council ] elections shall be by roll call, a show of hands, secret ballot, as the Rules Committee may recommend and the General Assembly may approve."
The General Assembly gets recommendations from a rules committee and then votes to approve or disapprove any proposed rule dealing with the General Assembly's method of voting on matters that come up before the General Assembly.
This authority is broad authority. With this authority the General Assembly can select from any of the methods for voting that the LULAC Constitution, Bylaws and Protocol authorizes. It can approve the method/s as part of the convention rules that will be used by the General Assembly. The Rules Committee nor the LULAC District, State, or National Boards cannot legislate dictum that abridges the voting method authority that the LULAC Constitution, Bylaws and Protocol grants the LULAC General Assemblies.
The General Assembly's authority includes authorizing a method or methods of voting in the convening of its General Assembly from the three methods outlined in the LULAC Constitution, Bylaws and Protocol, that is, a roll call, a show of hands (while standing up) or a secret ballot. It can fashion a method so that votes that are in doubt may be clarified in a repeat vote or a roll call vote at the discretion of the Election Judge or on the call of a delegate of the General Assembly, the latter being made in the form of a non-debatable, non-amendable motion, same sign, or by roll call. Without invoking more, it is general understanding in democratic societies that it is the Election Judge (presiding officer) that makes the election outcome calls that would be subject to a challenge from the floor, but if more clarity is needed, the General Assembly can write in its rules that challenges to an election call shall be to the Election Judge (presiding officer).
Their is something evil and suspicious when a rule in elections that require simple majorities to call out a winner is proposing that a challenge in the call of the outcome of an election by the Election Judge (presiding officer) becomes a challenge to the Legal Advisor. In LULAC, the Legal Advisor interprets the Constitution, Bylaws, Protocol, Resolutions, Policies, represents LULAC in legal matters, provides councils to the LULAC Board and LULAC entities. The LULAC Legal Advisor does not carry any more weight in calling out who won an election than that which is tasked to the Election Judge, the presiding officer of a LULAC General Assembly. The evil and suspicion doubles up when the illegal rule vests a 2/3'rds authority in the Legal Advisor's call, which is then used to deny the General Assembly a right to request and obtain a count of the delegates voting on a matter before the General Assembly. The evil and suspicion triples up when, as in the Texas LULAC Rule 13, the script "It shall take, as per Robert’s Rules of Order (revised), a two-thirds vote to overturn all rulings made by the State Legal Advisor." Robert's Rules of Order, Revised, does that support this two-thirds fabrication.
What you have in LULAC in Texas, California and National is an attempt to steal LULAC away from the LULAC General Assembly by crafting rules that are not in keeping with the LULAC Constitution, Bylaws and Protocol.
If you leave everything to the Convention, you will not get your day in court. You will need to go to court to straighten this mess out.
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