Congressional DB8 Don’t stress

What is congress? Congress is the only form of debate in which the ability to argue each side is determined by the individual and everyone in the room can contribute. It alternates between speeches for the bill and speeches against.

Topics and Bills In Congress everything that is debated is presented in the form of a bill or a resolution. Bills are genuine laws that change something and have specific outcomes. Ex. A Bill to Ban direct to Consumer Drug Advertising Resolutions tend to only state the position of the House and are more moralistic than bills. Ex. A Resolution to Cut Foreign Aid to Israel.

How to debate congress You walk in the room. First things first you will either be given a nametag and told where to sit or you will need to find your spot with your name tag on it. Then you sit down. Make friends with the people around otherwise it’s not going to be very easy. You need friends in congress and since none of you can be feared yet, it’s time to be loved. You need friends who empathize with you and are willing to help.

Generalities of Parliamentary motions When you all get settled there may be an election of a Presiding Officer. Generally you should look for someone who is both confident and appears to actually know what they are doing. Do not run for PO your first time doing Congress, it’s boring, complicated, and doesn’t help much unless you do it sparklingly. There a lot of rules and the ability to actually do it takes practice.

Speeches To get a speech you generally have to stand up really fast. You want either the first or last speech. The first lets you define the debate but the last let’s you sum it up and stand out in the minds of the judges.

Speech Structure A speech is only three minutes long so there’s very little time to really do your thing. The best thing to do is to give a fifteen second intro then spend around 45 or fifty seconds for three arguments The intro and conclusion need to thematically link up so if you start with a story about a dog then you should end by talking about the dog.

Question Time The questioning period time is relatively adversarial View the questions as a time to prove your knowledge depth and ability to analyze the bill or resolution. When asking questions it’s technically against the rules to try to prove a point with it but if you can ask a clarification question that roasts the speaker then you are golden.

Voting At the end of a debate a motion will be presented and after it’s ratified you’ll get to vote. Most of the time you will just stand up to either affirm or negate. Voting does not actually affect the scores but generally people who are good get voted up on the side they argued for.

Judging The ballot you get back is going to have a box for each speech. Speeches are ranked 1-6 and sixes are best. In addition to speeches you will also be ranked 1-9 in your house with ones being the best. So what is to be aimed for is good speeches to get you the one.