Congress Rules & Schedule

Synchronous Congressional Debate

•         We will provide as many chambers as necessary to provide speaking opportunities for all students.  We will have one Senate and as many House chambers as needed to accommodate a chamber size of 12-16.  You may have 2 senators and unlimited representatives, although only 4 voting members in any house. 

•         The entry fee is $6.00 per Congressperson.

•         Two preliminary rounds Friday breaking to a final chamber with 12 students on Saturday morning.

·        Scorers’ nominations will be used to nominate and medal the top 6 finalists.  We will also award a sweepstakes trophy with the top four from each school counting toward sweepstakes.

•         Legislation must be submitted via Tabroom as part of your registration no later than 5:00 pm on January 22^nd.  All schools competing may submit an equal number of resolutions or bills to represent the number of total entries.  NO LATE LEGISLATION WILL BE ACCEPTED.  The agenda will be set using a virtual caucus starting 30 minutes before Session I.

•         All sessions will be direct questioning.

•         Click: https://www.speechanddebate.org/wp-content/uploads/High-School-Unified-Manual-2020-2021-1.pdf for complete rules, tournament procedures and protocols, and online considerations.

•         Pilots: we follow NSDA rules and procedures for Congressional Debate, with the following pilots in place:

•         Limit of debate to no more than 8 speeches per legislation.

•         Each author/sponsor will give a 90-second final appeal speech – with no questioning – when debate concludes on their legislation, which will be scored as a final addition to their speech, but not count for precedence/recency

Congress Schedule:

Friday

Registration                                          2:30 - 3:00

Caucusing in Chamber                          3:00 – 3:30

Session I                                               3:30 – 5:50

Session II                                              5:00 – 6:20

Session III                                             6:30 - 8:00

Saturday

Finals                                                   1:00 – 2:30