Information for Judges/Parliamentarians

10^th Annual Capitol Congressional Debate Contest

Information for Parliamentarians and Judges

The debate will utilize the 2021 TFA Fall Docket. A copy of the legislation can be found in the parliamentarian folders. The docket legislation for the morning and afternoon chambers are:

Morning Chambers: #2, #7, #9, #12, #13, #17, #21

Final Chambers: #4, #8, #10, #11, #14, #18, #28

Docket nominations will be set in the chambers.

The morning chambers will run from 8:30-11:30.  Finals will run from 1:00-3:45.

Preliminary Chambers and Final Chambers for all divisions WILL use Direct Questioning. (See rules below)

Presiding Officer Candidates: Floor PO nominations will be allowed for preliminary and finals chambers.

Parliamentarians run PO elections upon calling chambers to order.

Because there are some differences between TFA, NSDA, and UIL rules on congressional debate, included below are some general guidelines this tournament will follow. While this is not inclusive of all guidelines, hopefully, this acts as a reference for the most common differences in case one is needed.

Floor Debate

Following the first two speeches on legislation, the presiding officer will alternately recognize affirmative and negative speakers, who will address the chamber for up to 3 minutes. If no one wishes to oppose the preceding speaker, the presiding officer may recognize a speaker upholding the same side. When no one seeks the floor for debate, the presiding officer may ask the chamber if they are “ready for the question” at which point, if there is no objection, voting may commence on the legislation itself. There is no “minimum cycle.” At the point at which 3 speeches are given unopposed the previous question will be immediately called.

1. In the event a student speaks on the wrong side called for by the presiding officer and the error is not caught, the speaker shall be scored and the speech shall count in precedence, but the speaker will receive no more than 3 points for not paying close attention to the flow of debate.

2. In the event a student speaks on an item of legislation not currently being debated, said speech shall count in precedence, but zero points shall be awarded.

a. Violators who speak on the wrong side or the wrong item shall be refused further recognition for debate on that piece of legislation, and that speech will count for precedence.

b. Speeches shall last no longer than three minutes with one minute of cross-examination time with the exception of sponsorship/authorship speeches and the first negative speech, where cross-examination shall last no longer than two minutes.

d. Members must speak only after being recognized by the presiding officer.

e. Members may not suspend the rules in order to change rules stipulated in the TFA Constitution.

f. Authorship shall be attributed to submitting schools. Therefore, opening speeches on a given piece of legislation will be authorship or sponsorship speeches, depending on whether the school authoring the legislation is in attendance at each tournament.

g. Two minutes of questioning shall follow the first pro and the first con speech, and all other speeches on legislation will be followed by 1 minute of questioning.

3. Direct Questioning: Each questioner has 30 seconds within the one or two minutes to engage in direct questioning with the speaker. During direct questioning, all questioning periods are broken into 30-second segments, with one questioner per segment, who may ask multiple questions of the speaker during that segment. The Presiding Officer must track and select questioners based on recency the same way speakers are recognized. Recency for speaker should be tracked independently of questioners.

a. Each bill or resolution shall be debated for a maximum of 45 minutes. If action has not been taken on the legislation by that time, an immediate vote shall be taken.