2026 JAS Grand Finals

2026 — Tampa, FL/US

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Student Congress

Event Description:

Congressional Debate is category where competitors act as a mock legislative body. In doing so, competitors will propose and debate pieces of legislation approved and included on the published Congressional Debate Docket (available a week in advance of the tournament on tabroom --> Website--> Uploads). Congressional Debaters are expected to utilize the Robert's Rules of Order when conducting the business of the legislative chamber.

All schools with Congressional Debate entries must upload to tabroom at least one (1) piece of legislation to be considered for the Grand Finals Docket. Congressional Debate registrants will be waitlisted until the team's legislation submission is satisfied. If the legislation submission requirement is not satisfied by Thursday, February 12, at 8:00 PM, all of the school's Congressional Debate entries will be dropped. Schools may submit up to four (4) pieces of legislation to be considered for the Grand Finals Docket. Legislation uploads MUST a) accord with NCFL template guidelines (templates can be downloaded from tabroom), b) not exceed a single page in length, and c) be in a Microsoft Word document format.

Important rule distinctions:

1. The use of tablets and laptop computers during the session is permitted for purposes of notetaking, evidence retrieval, and timekeeping only. Cell phone use by students is prohibited, except for a hotspot configured and put away before the session. Presiding Officers MAY NOT use their phones to time. The officials MAY NOT waive this rule.

2. Recency carries over from session to session (not reset) in preliminaries. This means recency prioritization accrues throughout all preliminary sessions.

3. For cross examination: 2 minute running cross after Authorship/Sponsorship speech and first Negative Speech. One minute of running cross for every speech that follows. All questioners must be recognized by presiding officer. Each questioner has a 30 second block wherein they can ask single-part questions to the speaker. This does not mean questioners can only ask ONE question in their thirty seconds, but rather, that multi-part questions are not permitted. Follow up questions are fine if they are within the 30 second block.

4. For amendments: An amendment must be germane (related) to the legislation’s subject matter and must not alter the legislation’s intent. The amendment is written as a single imperative sentence specifying one of the following changes: (1) Strike out one or more occurrences of a word/phrase/passage (2) Insert one or more occurrences of a word/phrase/passage (3) Substitute new material for part or all of the existing text. The amendment must be written out and submitted to the Parliamentarian (via the Presiding Officer) for review before the motion to amend can be in order. The author may rise to a point of personal privilege to approach the Chair with an amendment. While the B/R to be amended is on the floor, the author of the amendment should seek recognition for a motion and move to amend the legislation. The PO will ensure that the amendment is satisfactory, read it to the chamber, and call for a second by recorded vote. If the amendment receives the required second, it may be debated. However, the chamber may instead move the previous question immediately and vote on the amendment without debate. Debate, if any, begins with an affirmative speech, assigned according to the usual rules of priority. The author of the amendment is not entitled to the speech.

5. One-sided debates: There is no maximum number of consecutive one-sided speeches that forces the chamber to move to the previous question. Whether or not to call the previous question is the discretion of a) the chamber competitors, and b) the presiding officer, who, in order to maintain the conventions of Congressional Debate, may ask that the chamber move to the previous question in cases where there is no real debate (a lack of proponent/opposition speeches).