East Iowa District Qualifier

for the 2021 National Tournament

Congress requirements

The District Congress tournament is an important event for our District, as it is another chance to qualify students to attend the National tournament.  The Congress tournament will be held January 30th, 2021 virtually. The platform we will use will be determined prior to the tournament.

In order to participate, a few guidelines must be met.  I have broken down these requirements by category: school, student, and entry guidelines.

School Requirements (Same as District IE/Debate)

Student Requirements (Same as District IE/Debate)

Entry Guidelines

Now that schools and students are registered and eligible to compete, there are some additional guidelines on what you can enter at the District Congress tournament.  Here are the most important points:

1.  Single Entry Intent Form – No student may double enter at the National Tournament.  Therefore, each student must submit a Single Entry Letter of Intent, and the preferences should be part of the registration process on Tabroom.

Please ensure this is completed prior to the District Congress tournament date.  

2.  Entry Limts– Each event is capped at 2 entries per school in the Senate and a certain number of entries in the House.  A school may enter as many entries as they can, based on their degree strength.  You can verify how many entries you are allowed by visiting your profile on the NSDA website. You can verify how many House/Senate "slots" are available for your school strength on page 65 of the District Manual. 

3.  Congress Specific Rules -  Here are some additional, Congress specific details:

A.  Legislation - Each school is asked to send in at least 2 bills or resolutions by January 6.  Each bill/resolution must be formatted properly.  Templates for legislation can be found at:

http://www.congressionaldebate.org

On the right-hand side, just click on the "Templates" link for help with formatting.  For more information regarding legislation, see the "Legislation" tab above.

B.  Time Allowances and Sessions - For a one-day tournament, District Congress must allow for seven hours of debate, which includes two sessions, breaks, and meals.  Each session is three hours in length.

C.  Judges - All judges are required to be unaffiliated.  As such, schools will not be providing judges for this event.  Each chamber will have 2 judges per session.  In addition, each chamber will have a Parliamentarian who is not scoring - however, they are there to keep the chamber running smoothly.  

D.  Senate Guidelines - In order to hold a Senate, where 2 students from the chamber qualify for Nationals, 8 schools are required to be present and active.  If there are not 8 schools present and active at the tournament, a Senate cannot be held.  If a Senate is held, 2 qualifiers will attend Nationals.

E.  House Guidelines - Each District can hold as many Houses as their entry count justifies.  In each House, 16-29 students in the chamber qualify two students.  When you have more than 29 entries, you hold 2 Houses, with each qualifying two students.  NOTE: Each House must have a minimum of 16 students to qualify a student to Nationals.

A bit of a change for virtual congress: 

We can only have 8-15 students in one virtual chamber, so if we have 16 students, we have them split into 2 8 person chambers, we will have students compete for a minimum of 10 minutes per student in the chamber (we will determine that time frame later, but it will be a minimum of an hour and a half), then we break to a final round to take the top 8-15. Then two from that final session will qualify. Further, if we had 33 students, we would break into 3 chambers of 11, do a minimum of 110 minutes, then break to 15 or less for finals, and 4 students from that final session would qualify.