Congressional Debate Rules

THE GLENBROOKS

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE

RULES AND PROCEDURES

Thank you for choosing to attend the 38th annual Glenbrooks Tournament.  The following rules intend to promote procedural unity among the chambers and to foster a consistently high standard of Congressional debate. These regulations cannot be altered or ignored by a chamber with a motion to suspend the rules.  They are consistent with the guidelines and standards suggested by the Tournament of Champions, to which each student who advances to semifinals earns a qualifying bid. Note that the Glenbrooks tournament follows NSDA rules unless superseded by those below outlined, and seeks the relevant advice of the latest available edition of Robert’s Rules of Order for matters on which this document and the NSDA are silent.  Tournament directors reserve the right to issue additional special rules for the Glenbrooks as warranted and welcome your questions in advance of the tournament.

1 SESSIONS & CHAMBERS

1.1 Number of Sessions: The tournament will consist of three preliminary sessions, one semifinal session, and a final session.

1.2 Assignment to Preliminary Chambers: Students will be assigned to geographically diverse preliminary chambers ideally of a size ranging from 18-22 students, never to exceed 25. Where possible students from the same school will be placed evenly in chambers. However, students may be placed together to leave chambers open such that judges from that school can be assigned without conflicts.

2 LEGISLATION

2.1 Submission of Preliminary Legislation: The tournament will publish guidelines and deadlines for student legislation submission annually in the invitation.  Tournament officials will consider submitted legislation from attending students, selecting bills and resolutions that are controversial, timely, well written, properly formatted, and that there substantial affirmative and negative arguments. Submission of legislation for consideration is not a guarantee that it will be included in the tournament’s docket, as it must be limited to a reasonable number of pieces of legislation so that debaters can adequately prepare.  In keeping with longstanding Glenbrooks tradition, legislation selected for the tournament will be assigned to three categories: Economics, Foreign Affairs, or Public Welfare.

2.2 Semifinal and Final Legislation: The Congressional debate tabulation staff will write or select legislation for the semifinal and final sessions, drawing at their discretion from recent monthly legislation dockets published by the NSDA.

2.3 Publishing of Legislation: Once published on the tournament website, the legislation docket should be downloaded and printed.  The tournament will not supply printed copies to the students.  A printed copy will be provided for each judge and parliamentarian’s personal use.

3 ESTABLISHING THE AGENDA

3.1 Determining the Agenda: Prior to the beginning of Session 1, each preliminary chamber will act as a committee of the whole to determine the order of legislation to be debated throughout the three preliminary sessions.  The chamber may do this by unanimous consent or by voting on multiple proposed agendas.  The agenda established by each chamber must rotate between legislation drawn from Economics, Foreign Affairs or Public Welfare; the rotation can be initiated by any of the three categories.

3.2 Freedom of Debate: Suspensions of the rules to allow for changes to the agenda are not permitted. Once the chamber has set an agenda for the tournament, they may not deviate from that agenda. This ensures fair competition and equitable preparation. Debate on a bill will continue until time expires in the session during which it began or the previous question is called, whichever comes first.

4 ELECTION OF PRESIDING OFFICERS AND THEIR DUTIES

4.1 Election Procedures: The parliamentarian will conduct elections for presiding officers, assisted by scorers in the collection of the secret ballots.  Each student within the chamber may cast one vote. Voting will continue, dropping the lowest vote-getter(s), until one person receives a majority.   The voting for the second session Presiding Officer shall be held at the end of the first session, and voting for the third session presiding officer shall be held at the end of the second session.

4.2 Progression of Speeches and Cross-Examination:  Debate on each bill or resolution will begin with a call for a three-minute authorship speech by its signed author, or in their absence by a representative from their school.  An author or student(s) from the author’s school may decline to stand for this speech.  In the absence of such a speech, the presiding officer will call for any representative to deliver the first affirmative speech, functionally sponsoring the legislation.  Following the delivery of the first affirmative speech, the chair will allow for two minutes of questioning of the speaker. Following the questioning, the chair will ask for a speech in opposition to the bill. This speech will be three minutes long followed by a two minute of questioning.  All subsequent speeches shall be three minutes in length followed by a one minute questioning period.  In the preliminary sessions speakers may only ask one question at a time (two-part/multiple questions are not allowed).

4.3 One-Sided Debate: In the unlikely absence of a first affirmative speech, debate may also begin on a new piece of legislation with a negative speech.  There is no limitation on the number of consecutive affirmative or negative speeches that can be given.

4.4 Recognizing Speakers:  When more than one debater seeks the floor, the presiding officer must follow the precedence/recency method, that is:  

·         First, recognize students who have not spoken during the session.  Choose between these students at random.

·         Next, recognize students who have spoken fewer times during the session.

·         Finally, recognize students who spoke earlier (least recently) during the session.

4.5 Penalty for Speeches Exceeding Time Limits: Any regular floor speech that extends more than 10 seconds beyond the maximum speaking time of three minutes shall be penalized one full point on the speech score by the judge evaluating the session. The Presiding Officer is required to keep accurate time of each speech and report it to the judges when the speaker has finished.

4.6 Precedence and the Legislative Day:  Within each session precedence/recency do not reset, to ensure that all students in a chamber have opportunities to speak and receive evaluation from the scorers. When each new session begins precedence/recency will be reset.  The length of sessions should not be altered to indulge the debaters’ desire to allow for all members to end with an equal number of speeches (i.e., do not recess early after all students have given two speeches in the session).

5 OTHER NOTES OF DECORUM

5.1 Amendments:  Legislators may submit amendments to the Presiding Officer in writing. A motion to amend is necessary to consider the written amendment; such a motion is in order anytime after the first affirmative speech. Once the motion is made, the Presiding Officer decides if the amendment is germane. The Presiding Officer must consult with the Parliamentarian to make this decision. If the amendment is deemed not to be germane, the chair rules it out-of-order and the amendment process stops. If the chair rules the amendment germane, he/she should read the contents of the amendment to the chamber. A 1/3 second of the members present in the chamber is required to debate the amendment. If the chamber votes a second, debate on the amendment commences immediately. Legislators may make a motion to table or call the previous question on the amendment at any time. The first speech on the amendment is a sponsorship speech. The chair determines speaker recognition for the sponsorship speech on the basis of priority; the author of the amendment is not guaranteed the sponsorship speech. The sponsor accepts responsibility for the mechanics of the amendment and yields to two minutes of questioning. All amendment speeches receive a score and count towards priority. A majority vote is necessary for the chamber to adopt the amendment (this of course after a 2/3 vote has been achieved to call previous question on the amendment).

5.2 Voting By Unanimous Consent:  When a motion is unlikely to be contested, it is appropriate for the Chair to call for unanimous consent by asking, “are there any objections” before executing the motion.  Members may then respond by announcing “objection” to the chamber.  This is not an automatic recognition to explain the substance of that objection.  Proper expression of your objection is to then vote “Nay” in the subsequent division of the chamber (this prohibition includes explaining that you have a speech you still wish to deliver; the chamber is aware that you’ve been standing thus far and is not obliged to allow every member to deliver every speech he/she may desire).  It is imperative that Presiding Officers cease the inefficient practice of allowing explanations of objections ad nauseam.

5.3 Personal Privileges:  It has become common practice in recent years to suspend the rules and allow for an “open” chamber where members may freely enter and exit between speeches.  While this does relieve the Chair of traffic directing duties, it has led to some degree of abuse by debaters.  Therefore at the Glenbrooks tournament suspension of the rules for the purposes of an open chamber is not permitted.  No more than two members should be excused from chambers simultaneously.

5.4 Designation as a House of Representatives or a Senate:  The Glenbrooks tournament strives to be a contest with the highest standards of behavior at all times among attending students.  Debate modeling the work of the United States Congress should be enjoyable but also taken seriously.  All preliminary chambers are designated as a House of Representatives, while semifinal chambers and the final chamber are designated as Senates.  A member of a Senate is always referred to as Senator, while a member of a House of Representatives is always referred to as Representative. The Presiding Officer of a Senate is addressed as President, while the Presiding Officer of a House of Representatives is addressed as Speaker. The Presiding Officer is responsible for enforcing proper decorum. 

5.5 Advocates in Good Faith:  A debater may not speak on both sides of the same legislation, but may speak as many times on the same piece of legislation as their priority permits and the chamber allows before calling the question.

6 JUDGE AND PARLIAMENTARIAN RESPONSIBILITIES

6.1 Number of Judges:  Two qualified judges will serve for each session, and the tournament directors will attempt to seat larger panels for semifinal and final sessions.  A judge will not be assigned to evaluate a student from their school(s).

6.2 Instructions to Judges:  Judges should rank the students as "legislators" and not merely as "speakers" considering their argumentative skill, oratorical skill and overall effectiveness as a leader in the chamber.   Brief guidelines are specified on the speech ballots.

6.3 Judges’ Scoring of Speeches and Preferential Rankings:  In the preliminary session, each judge will score every speech on a scale of 1-6 points (6 is best). At the end of each session, the two judges will independently each rank the top eight students who advanced the debate most effectively (1st is best). All unranked students will receive a rank of ninth.  The Presiding Officer may be ranked in the top eight, and should be if s/he provides outstanding service to the chamber.  All judges will be instructed that they must consider the Presiding Officer. 

6.4 Parliamentarians:  A Parliamentarian will be appointed to serve continuously for the three preliminary sessions.  The Parliamentarians ensure order, allowing the chamber to run itself but correcting significant procedural errors that affect fairness.

6.5 Scoring of the Presiding Officer:  The Parliamentarian will be solely responsible for scoring the performance of the presiding officer following each session. As per NSDA rules, the Parliamentarian will award the Presiding Officer up to six points per hour per session for a total of 18 points.

6.6 Parliamentarians’ Preferential Rankings:  Once at the end of all preliminary sessions, the semifinal session, or the final session as appropriate, the parliamentarian will rank all of the legislators in the chamber.  The parliamentarian’s top eight rankings will be included in the calculation of which legislators advance from each chamber, and his/her rankings beyond eighth will be used to break ties as below indicated.

6.7 Best Legislation:  The Parliamentarian will conduct an election for Outstanding Legislation at the end of the third session.  All legislation that was debated within the chamber will be eligible for consideration. The winning legislation must receive a simple majority of the votes cast.  If no legislation earns a simple majority, the legislation that receives the lowest vote total (or the legislation with the same lowest total) will be dropped from consideration until such time as one piece of legislation does obtain the required simple majority.

6.8 Best Presiding Officer:  The Parliamentarian will also conduct an election for best Presiding Officer at the end of the third session.  The winning candidate must receive a simple majority of the votes cast.  If no person earns a simple majority, the candidate who receives the lowest vote total will be dropped from consideration and voting will be repeated. If the two lowest vote getters are tied, a runoff between the two will occur with the lowest vote getter being dropped.  Another vote will be taken between the two remaining candidates.

7 THE SEMIFINAL & FINAL SESSIONS

7.1 Number of Students Advancing: Consistent with TOC guidelines, the tournament intends to advance no more than one-third of all preliminary contestants to the semifinal session.  While the number of students advancing is dependent on the number of preliminary chambers and the optimum number of students in the semifinal chambers, generally six students have advanced from each preliminary chamber in past years.  The exact number of students advancing from each preliminary chamber will be announced before the tournament begins.  There will be three or four semifinal chambers, ideally of 15-18 students each, and one final chamber of 14-16 students.

7.2 Determining Advancing Students:  Each individual preliminary chamber is tabulated independent of the others. Legislators with the lowest cumulative rank total (each judge's’ top eight plus the parliamentarian's top eight) advance to the next level of competition.  The parliamentarian's preference will break all ties.  Ranks do not carry forward from preliminary sessions to the semifinal session, or from the semifinal session to the final session.

7.3 Balancing the Semifinal Chambers: Advancing students shall be assigned to one of three or four semifinal chambers with an effort made to ensure geographical distribution, disperse students from the same preliminary chamber, and balance strength of competition based on preliminary rankings.  Students from the same school will be evenly placed in different semifinal chambers.

7.4 Judges and the Parliamentarian: At least two judges - and ideally more - will be assigned to the semifinal session and will be responsible for evaluating the participants’ speeches.  At least four judges will be assigned to the final session.

7.5 Presiding Officer:  Each parliamentarian and the Director of Congress will act as the temporary presiding officer of the semifinal and final sessions respectively, accepting nominations for the Presiding Officer.  The members will vote immediately for one nominee after each nominee has the opportunity to address the chamber.

7.6 Legislation and Authorship Speeches:  Tournament directors have selected the legislation to be debated in the semifinal and final sessions.  The chamber will meet as a committee of the whole to choose the order in which the legislation will be debated.  There are no authorship speeches in the semifinal or final sessions.  Any student may give the sponsorship speech.

7.7 Direct Questioning:  For the semifinal and final sessions, the tournament implements the direct questioning procedures that are becoming increasingly common throughout the country.  The chair will then yield time to members of the of the chamber wishing to question the speaker in blocks of 30 seconds, prioritizing those who may have been refuted. The tournament directors will provide additional instructions at the beginning of the semifinal session.

7.8 Awards:  All participants in the final session will receive awards at the awards ceremony following its conclusion.

8 ETHICAL AND BEHAVIORAL EXPECTATIONS

8.1 Observers:  All chambers are open for public viewing.  Gallery members should be quiet and attentive, entering and exiting chambers only between speeches.  The parliamentarian in each chamber can and should remove any disruptive observers and bar them from returning.

8.2 Electronic Devices and Internet Usage:  The use of electronic devices in chambers is permitted, though it is strongly recommended that students avoid reading notes from devices when delivering speeches in front of the chamber.  All devices must be silenced.  Please be advised that limited power supplies may exist in the classrooms and the tournament accepts no responsibility for providing Congressional debaters with a power source at any tournament site.  Internet access in chambers during a session (including during personal privileges and recesses while a session is ongoing) is not permitted.  Internet usage between sessions is permitted.

8.3 Ethical Use of Evidence:  The Glenbrooks will utilize the National Speech and Debate Association’s pilot evidence rules available at CongressionalDebate.org.

8.4 General Tournament Rules:  Beyond the rules and procedures specific to Congressional debate outlined above, the Glenbrook schools also require that you observe the following general standards of conduct.

·         No eating or drinking (excluding water) by anyone associated with the tournament while in classrooms.

·         Inappropriate language will not be allowed.

·         Disrespect or misuse of the facilities or furnishings will not be tolerated.

·         Unsportsmanlike behavior will not be tolerated.

·         All school district policies, local, and state laws regarding harassment must be observed.

·         All school district policies, local, and state laws prohibiting smoking (including vaping), alcohol, and weapons must be observed.

8.5 Penalties:  Consequences for infractions may result in any or all of the following actions at the sole discretion tournament directors whose decisions are final.

·         Disqualification from the tournament

·         Loss of participation points

·         Forfeiture of awards

·         School administrators being notified of any misconduct

·         Any additional consequences deemed appropriate to the severity of the infraction

·         Schools will be held financially responsible for all damages incurred.