Assume a member debates a Main Motion and then tells the chair that the portion of her unexpired time is to be yielded to another member. What would the chair's ruling?

• A. The request would be granted; unexpired debate time may be yielded
• B. The request would not be granted because a member cannot yield any unexpired debate time to another member
• C. The chair should allocate it to the next speaker
• D. The chair should extend debate time for all members

Answer: (B)

The situation tests how time in debate is handled. When someone has the floor on a debatable main motion, the time they have to speak is their personal allotment. That time isn’t transferable to someone else. The rules don’t provide a mechanism for passing the remainder of your unexpired time to another member. Because of that, the chair would not grant a request to yield the rest of your time to someone else. The flow of debate is managed by the chair, who can call on the next speaker after the current speaker’s time is used or when the speaker yields the floor back to the chair, but the remaining time itself isn’t given to another member. Extending time for all members or allocating the rest of the time to the next speaker would require separate motions or actions by the assembly, not a simple yield.