1. Anyone may request the opportunity to make a presentation on a
legislative issue before Food Producers of Idaho. If you desire to make a
presentation at a regular meeting of FPI, contact the FPI office,
208/888-0988, for approval twenty-four hours prior to the day of the meeting
to be placed on the agenda.
2. We prefer that you have a copy of the legislative issue being presented
for consideration by the membership, or a written statement concerning the
issue that can be passed on to the FPI membership.
3. Copies of material or information about a legislative issue will first
be presented at a regular FPI meeting. If desired, copies will be mailed to
the FPI membership immediately following the meeting. The name of the
sponsoring individual or organization, along with a phone number, will appear
in all mailed material so that additional information may be obtained by
contacting the sponsoring party.
4. At the next meeting of FPI the issue will be voted on by the members
present.
5. Voting on legislative
issues before the FPI members will be one vote per organization holding voting
membership. If more than one person from the
organization is present, all may speak to the issues; however, only one person
may cast the vote on behalf of that organization. Voting on legislative issues
for FPI will require a 75% approval for the organization’s endorsement (e.g.,
20 possible votes – 4 abstain; therefore, there must be 12 of the remaining 16
as "aye" votes to reach the 75% approval). Voting procedures will
be handled as follows:
- Issue will be voted on initially by voice or visual vote.
- If there are dissenting votes, a roll-call vote of full voting members
will be held. (A secret ballot may be requested by any voting member.)
- Those voting "no" will be recorded in the minutes and reported
on any correspondence related to the issue of the dissenting voter’s
desire.
- On roll-call votes, proxy votes will be recorded for full voting members
with the name of the person and their vote recorded in the minutes as a
proxy vote.
6. Due to the wide variety of interests served by
FPI, all those presenting
information before the membership are asked to respect a maximum 15-minute
presentation time per issue.
7. FPI encourages legislative presentations on issues and, when possible, a
balanced approach to presenting both sides of an issue. Legislators will be
given preference in presenting proposed legislation, regardless of the
philosophy of the legislation.
8. If, in the judgement of the membership, the intent of a legislative
bill changes significantly following FPI endorsement, then the measure may
need to be reconsidered by the membership.
9. Since time is a primary factor on legislative issues, the FPI
Executive Committee (president, vice president, secretary) can act on issues
on behalf of the membership between meetings. All Executive Committee
decisions will need to be reported at the next meeting of the membership.
