1/31 Congressional Debate Changes and Updates

We are excited to welcome you all to the Golden Desert Congressional Debate tournament at UNLV tomorrow! We have some important updates that you will want to make sure that you share with your students:

1. We will be in the Hospitality Building (HOS). There are 10 total restrooms in HOS, but we are asked to use two of them only (otherwise custodial has to clean all 10 restrooms). There are signs on the doors of the 8 restrooms not to use, so please do not use them if there is a sign on them telling you not to use it.

2. When you arrive, please report to HOS 384 (Congress tab). Students will be competing in HOS 382.

2. Unfortunately due to our drops and small entry number to begin with, we have 12 students total in Congressional Debate. With such a small number, it does not make sense to have a final super session, so the Congressional Debate tournament will only be on Saturday.

3. We will no longer have a final supersession. Last year, our students really enjoyed our final scenario, but since we don't have the extra day, we wanted to make sure that students have adequate time to prepare. Due to this, we have decided to make our third session the final scenario that will be based on "A Bill to Increase Foreign Aid for Anti-Corruption and Humanitarian Measures" (number 3 in your legislation packet). This legislation is reserved for session 3. As a reminder, internet is permitted for research during the sessions.

4. Since there is no final supersession, we are recommending to the chamber that they use direct questioning; however, this is up to the chamber. As stated in the information packet, this requires moving to suspend the rules to invoke Direct Questioning in the preliminary sessions, and a two-thirds majority to pass. Anyone planning on acting as a Presiding Officer should note that Direct Questioning requires its own precedence and recency tracked separately from speeches.

5. The schedule has been changed to accommodate our third session as a scenario:

9:00am-9:10am Mandatory Competitor Meeting
9:10am Mandatory Session 1 Judges Meeting
9:10-9:25am Committee
9:25-11:25am Session 1
11:25am Competitors come to Congress tab for emergency updates for the session 3 scenario
11:35am-1:05pm Lunch (provided)
12:50pm Mandatory Session 2 Judges Meeting
1:05-3:05pm Session 2
3:10pm Competitors and Session 3 judges come to Congress tab for emergency briefing for session 3 scenario
3:30-5:30pm Session 3 - Emergency Session

Top Six Students will be announced at the Congressional Debate awards beginning ASAP after Session 3. Please be in Congress tab by 5:45pm

As always, please email Jordy and Michael should you have any questions (goldendesertcongress@gmail.com)! We are a small but mighty division and we're excited to see you tomorrow!