Some people complain that Robert’s Rules are too complex to understand. Some people say that parliamentary procedure itself is too complex or too unfair. They say that the act of “making motions” and processing the “majority vote” shouldn’t require a million rules.

Well guess what? It is not a monopoly. You can compare prices.

If you don’t like the current edition of Robert’s Rules of Order (i.e. the 11th edition published in 2011 which is titled “Newly Revised Robert’s Rules of Order”, published by DaCapo Press), then your organization is free to adopt another from the competition. parliamentary handbook.

In fact, prior to 1876, the first year of the publication of the original edition of Henry Martyn Robert’s paperback, every organization necessarily had to write its own custom set of parliamentary rules, because they had to; Complete compilation within reach of the average civic organization. That little pocket manual from HM Robert filled a marketing niche that had no competition.

However, your organization cannot adopt any manual and write its own 100% custom rules. That’s right: complete anarchy, except for what your bylaws specify plus any unique rules you create yourselves. There is nothing stopping you from reinventing the wheel; in fact, a “wheel” of 200, 300, or 400 pages, depending on how comprehensive you want your personalized manual to be. But do you really have 3-6 years free for such a company?

If you don’t want to spend 3-6 years writing your own parliamentary handbook, and if you don’t like the 700+ pages of the current edition of Robert’s Rules, what’s the alternative? Where can you turn for a set of democratic rules ready to be applied? What real alternative exists, right now, that can improve on or replace Robert’s Rules?

Good news on this front: Has anyone done a poll?

One parliamentarian, Jim Slaughter of North Carolina, wrote an article (see footnote) listing the most popular alternatives to Robert’s Rules. In his survey, he asked serving parliamentarians what parliamentary authority their clients were using. Slaughter’s findings were as follows.

• 90% use the “Newly Revised Robert Order Rules”

• 8% use “The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure”

• 3% use some other parliamentary authority

Since number 2 on the list is “The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure” (abbreviated “TSC” for “The Standard Code”), let’s review this book for its potential to replace Robert’s Rules.

The author of TSC was the late Alice F. Sturgis (1885-1974), who had serious work credentials with the United Nations. She taught at Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA) and the University of California (Berkeley, CA). Her first book on parliamentary procedure was published in 1925. Following Sturgis’s death, the revision of the book has been in the hands of a committee of the American Institute of Parliamentarians. The current edition is the fourth edition from 2000.

Some major organizations have taken the plunge and swapped the Sturgis book for Robert’s book: the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, the American Dental Association, and the United Auto Workers.

What is different about Sturgis’s book? To a non-parliamentary reader, the rules of the current edition of TSC may seem so similar to Robert’s Rules that the differences are not obvious. Indeed, any parliamentary handbook you choose must necessarily have significant overlap with all other parliamentary handbooks, due to the nature of 300 years of British customs and traditions being passed down more or less intact to all democratically elected legislatures. The fundamentals have not changed in 2,000 years. – (a.) Propose an idea; (b.) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages; (c.) Vote if it is carried out or not. The terminology has also been preserved over the centuries. The differences that exist will refer to specific motions, specific applications and not general changes.

What you get with Sturgis TSC 4th Edition is satisfaction for some of the most popular demands on Robert’s Rules of Order 11th Edition: (a.) fewer pages; (b.) larger print; (c.) fewer motions; (d.) change from slang to plain English.

There is no surprise here. One thing you can count on is that today’s competitors to Robert’s Rules will have either simplified something or condensed something. In other words, no one is putting out a parliamentary manual of plus pages, plus rules, than the current edition of Robert’s Rules, namely 716 numbered pages, and the book lists 86 numbered motions in its table. How many of the 86 moves will you see in your lifetime?

Beware of the difference in philosophy. Sturgis’s book, plus all similar condensations and simplifications, should be understood as a book of essential rules, with principles that implicitly cover what the written rules do not explicitly cover. By contrast, Robert’s book is intended to be encyclopedic in scope and intended to cover all contingencies.

What does this mean? It means that if you adopt Sturgis or a similar simplification, there will be parliamentary situations that the book will not cover. Whereas, on the contrary, it is highly unlikely that any parliamentary situation you find yourself in for the rest of your life will not have a corresponding rule in Robert’s Rules of Order.

Here is an analogy. — It’s like the difference between a hybrid/electric car vs. an SUV/Humvee: A vehicle will take you slowly and smoothly from point A to point B, as long as points A and B are not too far apart and not too steep. But the other vehicle is a monster truck, and there’s nowhere it can’t go. — That’s the difference between a watered-down manual that covers essentials and an industrial-strength manual that covers things you’ve never heard of and never will.

That’s why one book is 700+ pages and the competition is 200-300 pages. The Big Book covers everything, and is meant to cover 100%. The smaller competition has deliberate gaps and is meant to cover 50%-80% of all situations: the easy ones, the popular ones, the non-complex ones.

Here’s another analogy using television as the medium: Robert’s Rules versus someone else’s rules is like the difference in amount of data between a movie trailer and the actual movie. One contains some sound bites, some highlights, and the theme song. The other contains every line of dialogue, every scene, and all the themes and motifs.

Are there competitors to Sturgis? No, not really. All other competitors are exhausted. The imitation paperbacks that one might find on a keyword search are not recognized by any organization that I know of.

However, if you are a firefighter, there is a good chance that your parliamentary handbook is “Atwood Meeting Rules” (Roswell Atwood, 1956, published by the International Association of Firefighters). Even more out of print than Atwood are its oldest competitors: George Demeter’s manual. Franklin Kerfoot’s Handbook. Thomas B. Reed’s Handbook.

One more alternative to weigh and consider: State legislatures use Mason’s manual (Paul Mason, latest edition 2010, published by the National Conference of State Legislatures). But Mason is not a true competitor to Robert or Sturgis because Mason’s manual is intended for full-time legislative bodies and, as such, those rules won’t work for a once-a-month or once-a-month fraternity clubhouse meeting. to quarter. or a Little League meeting or a computer club.

That is the situation. If you have reservations, concerns, doubts, or fears about learning Robert’s Rules or being a victim of Robert’s Rules, then you don’t have to accept them. You may be able to convince your organization to adopt a competitor, such as “The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure” or “Atwood Rules for Meetings”. And if you don’t like Sturgis or Atwood, then you can go ahead and shoot your own. Yes, write your own rules of order, only yours. All inconsistencies and ambiguities will be your doing. Good luck.

But be careful what you wish for. If you write no rules, or write very few rules, then you will be at the mercy of an unscrupulous and untrained president with a hidden agenda, and you will have no way to fight back.

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note:

Jim Slaughter, “Parliamentary PPP Practices in 2000,” Parliamentary Journal, XLII (January 2001), 1-11.

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