Request By:
Leonard W. Clark
Executive Director
Kentucky Commission on Human Rights
701 West Muhammad Ali Blvd.
P.O. Box 69
Louisville, Kentucky 40201-0069
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
Your letter raises questions concerning the Commission on Human Rights. You ask whether those persons whose appointments as commissioners have expired but who continue to serve are to be considered along with those persons serving under unexpired appointments in determining whether a quorum exists for Commission meetings. You also ask whether unfilled vacancies are to be considered in determining if a quorum exists.
KRS 344.150 provides that the Commission shall consist of eleven members. After the eleven initial appointments all subsequent appointees "shall continue to serve until reappointed or replaced. " Although these subsequent appointees are appointed for a specific term of years there is a "holdover" provision whereby they can remain in office until they are reappointed or replaced. There is also a provision for filling vacancies caused by death or resignation.
In Roberts Rules of Order (Newly Revised), Chapter II, § 3, p. 16, the following appears in part relative to a quorum:
The minimum number of members who must be present at the meetings of a deliberative assembly for business to be legally transacted is the quorum of the assembly. The requirement of a quorum is a protection against totally unrepresentative action in the name of the body by an unduly small number of persons. In both houses of Congress, the quorum is a majority of the members, by the United States Constitution . . . .
At page 17 of Roberts Rules of Order, supra, it is stated:
. . . . In the absence of such a provision in a society or assembly whose real membership can be accurately determined at any time - that is, in a body having an enrolled membership composed only of persons who maintain their status as members in a prescribed manner - the quorum is a majority of the entire membership, by the common parliamentary law.
Finally in "Manual of Legislative Procedure for Legislative and Other Governmental Bodies" by Paul Mason (1962), the following appears at Section 501 (Computing a Quorum) , p. 337:
The total membership of a body is to be taken as the basis for computing a quorum, but when there is a vacancy, unless a special provision is applicable, a quorum will consist of the majority of the members remaining qualified.
Thus in computing the quorum those persons, properly appointed, who are presently functioning in a "holdover" capacity are to be counted as members of the group and may be counted to arrive at the quorum (the minimum number present at the meeting to lawfully transact business). If vacancies exist on the commission because, for example, of deaths and resignations, a quorum will consist of a majority of those members remaining qualified (vacant positions are excluded).