Jack Howe Memorial Tournament
2019 — Long Beach, CA/US
Open Congress
Event Description:
There are three (3) sessions of debate in the Preliminary Competition. Each session consists of two (2) hours of floor debate. Each chamber shall be allowed only a total of ten (10) minutes of break. This include in-house and out-of-house recesses.
There is one (1) elected Presiding Officer in each session. For purposes of this competition, one complete session is a legislative day. Priority for speaking resets at the end of each legislative day. Thus, all legislators will have zero speeches at the start of each session. The presiding officer may not yield the chair.
A Parliamentarian and two (2) Scorers will evaluate each chamber. The Parliamentarian remains in the chamber throughout the preliminary competition, while the Scorers rotate to different chambers throughout the tournament. The Scorers evaluate every speech that is given in a session, rating them on a scale of 1 to 6 (1 is low; 6 is high). The points awarded by a Scorer for a given speech can thus be used to determine NFL points for that speech. The Parliamentarian keeps notes on the overall performance of each legislator and will write formal ballots, including an evaluation for each Presiding Officer, awarding him/her up to 12 NFL points based on his/her performance during a given session.
At the end of the session, Scorers will each independently nominate six (6) students for Best Legislator during the session. At the end of all sessions, the Parliamentarian will each independently nominate ten (10) students for Best Legislator based on overall performance. Each nomination form will be converted into credits by the Tabulation Staff with the 1st place legislator receiving 6 credits, the 2nd place legislator receiving 5, and so on. Those students who were not ranked will receive zero (0) credits.
Preliminary chambers will be capped at 16 students per chamber.
If there are two preliminary chambers, six students from each will advance to finals.
If there are three preliminary chambers, five students from each will advance to finals.
If there are four preliminary chambers, four students from each will advance to finals.
If there are five or more chambers, we will break to a semi-final.
Advancement rules will be finalized and announced at the conclusion of the initial registration deadline.