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Assignment of the Floor

  1. To claim the floor, a member raises his/her hand when no one else has the floor. A member cannot establish prior claim to the floor by raising his/her hand while another member has the floor.

  2. Author(s) of the action item currently being considered, and the representative of the body which reported that item to the Senate (if any), shall be accorded priority for the purposes of accepting friendly amendments, answering questions, clarifying matters of fact, and making procedural motions (other than the motion of the previous question) intended either to maintain orderly debate or to expedite the consideration of the action item.

  3. No member of the Senate shall speak for longer than two minutes, including periods during which the floor is yielded to another member, before relinquishing the floor to another member. However, author(s) of an action item and the representative of the body reporting an action item to the Senate (if any) shall be allowed, when introducing the action item to the Senate, to speak for longer than two minutes, the new time limit to be determined by the Senate Chair in consultation with the speaker. When so introducing the action item, the speaker shall confine his/her remarks to statements of fact and matters of procedure. After introducing the action item, the speaker may speak for no longer than two additional minutes, including periods during which the floor is yielded to another member, before relinquishing the floor to another member.

  4. The Chair may stop debate at any time after four Senators have spoken and previous question has been called and seconded twice.


donald@
Mon May 9 17:13:34 PDT 1994