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Motion to postpone pro tem vote fails; Madison County board nominates Mick Madison amid debate over abstentions and agenda authority
Summary
At the Madison County Board reorganizational meeting on Dec. 5, 2022, a motion to postpone the election of a chairperson pro tem failed and the chair then nominated Mick Madison for the pro tem position; members debated whether abstentions count toward a majority and staff cautioned the Open Meetings Act and county ordinances limit off-agenda action.
A motion to postpone the election of the Madison County chairperson pro tem failed at the board's Dec. 5, 2022 reorganizational meeting in Edwardsville, after which the chair nominated Mick Madison for the pro tem slot and a roll call was taken.
A board member moved to postpone the vote on electing a pro tem, arguing the new board composition and recent constituent questions made postponement appropriate. The member said, "I would like to move to postpone the vote on the pro tem today... I have received a lot of questions from my constituents... Today is the first day that my voters in my district have had representation since September 2021." The motion was seconded and discussed but the chair called roll and declared the motion failed.
Following the failed postponement motion the chair offered a nomination: "I make a motion for Mick Madison to be the pro tem." The nomination was seconded and a roll call was conducted. Members spoke during the roll call with several responses recorded; the transcript records congratulations afterward, indicating the nomination succeeded. The official vote tally and individual yes/no votes were not clearly recorded in the transcript.
Debate after the roll call focused on whether an abstention counts with the majority and on the board's authority to change internal rules off the current agenda. One speaker asked, "It's the abstent does does the abstention go with the majority?" A staff speaker replied that a board member may abstain if they believe they have a conflict and do not have to state why, and cautioned, "Unless a matter is on the agenda, the board can't take final action on it." The staff member also noted an interpretation that someone would need 14 votes to secure the pro tem position under the cited ordinance language.
A five-minute recess was requested to allow members to confer and was granted; the staff speaker reminded members that, under the Open Meetings Act, discussions among more than six members must be public.
At no point in the recorded discussion did a speaker provide a full roll-call tally in the transcript; where the record does not specify numbers or named vote choices, this article reports that those tallies were not specified in the meeting record.
All attributions use the meeting-role labels from the record (for example, "Chair," "Clerk," "Committee member" and "Staff member") because speakers did not self-identify with full names while speaking during the debate.
The board left the matter after the recess request; the record does not show any ordinance changes or other final actions restoring or removing powers of the chairman during the meeting.
