Flipping in Congress Sucks

On December 17, 2022, I competed in my very first high school debate tournament. I had done debate in middle school, so the feeling of nervousness or jitters wasn’t particularly new to me. However, back then I competed in a Public Forum. Now, I was competing in Congressional Debate (or Student Congress) — a totally different format from what I had learned in the past three years of my life. 

Coming out of this tournament, if you had been competing in my chamber, you would’ve checked me into a mental institution after I motioned to “roll the dice to decide who takes the neg speech.” I mean, how much more obvious could I have made it to signal, “Novice here!” Thankfully, the PO for my round handled my inexperience well (thanks, Steven) and basically told the chamber to motion for a 10-minute recess to talk things out, because we definitely needed it. Unfortunately, my hope of giving the speech I prepped ended there. Between me and the two other competitors who were not budging, I caved first. I spent the last five minutes of the recess frantically changing my speech to give, quite frankly, a garbage speech and struggled to get through two half-decent questioning blocks. 

Coming into this tournament, my coaches told me that I didn’t have to prep both sides, and that I only had to give one speech on the side you want to debate in round. This was a total shock to me — I had gone through three years of prepping habits, and now I was told that I could make one speech for one topic. I didn’t even have to outline a summary speech or prep a full constructive, much less make a speech word for word. But when I got to my round, I was faced with a 0-3 split and ended up giving a half-prepped neg speech that made everyone else feel so bad that they ended up failing the bill — even the two competitors that argued in favor of the affirmation.. This one tournament highlighted a problem that is only found specifically in Congress. 

Congress is extremely different from every other mainstream debate format. You usually get extremely specific bills with pre-existing plans for implementation, not generalized topics up for interpretation. The average Congressional debater’s prep is ridiculously surface-level compared to that of a Policy debater, given they prep an entire topic for a year, and we probably prep three bills in a week for a local tournament. Congress places a lot more emphasis on our delivery and our level of performance compared to formats like Lincoln-Douglas. In Lincoln-Douglas some competitors literally speak 150+ words per minute, whereas Congressional debaters only have to give a single three minute long speech. But perhaps the most telling difference is the one that explains why people have to “flip”— you get to choose what side you want to debate on rather than being assigned that to you via Tabroom. The bar is low — and that explains why most people are faced with the dilemma of a 9-2 split when they head into rounds. That split can be daunting in the face of new debaters, who headed into a tournament only to find that they, like many others, didn’t want to give the affirmation speech for a bill that was extremely neg-heavy. These splits only really originate from a couple of situations: 

1. It was an undebatable bill. 

This doesn’t happen often, and it’s really only reserved for a couple of bills throughout the year. Not very often will tournaments feature undebatable bills, will a majority of competitors prep said bills, and people will actually proceed to use it in round. That doesn’t change the fact that some of these bills have slipped through the cracks, but the solution is simple: when you’re writing your bills, put some thought into what both sides will look like. If you

can foresee a viable affirmation and negation argument, it’s probably a debatable bill. 

2. People are lazy. 

This one happens pretty often. Far too many times I’ve walked into a chamber, seen a bad split, and thought to myself: “This wasn’t a bad bill; why is the split so bad?” It’s often a result of competitors not prepping both sides, not prepping the right side, not wanting to take a certain side, whatever the case may be — it’s a result of a lack of prep. This is a pretty big problem in Congress; we’re actively encouraged to take a side we believe in, but it actively takes away from one of the biggest lessons we can learn in debate — to see both sides of an argument and be able to advocate for the opposite. This can result in toxicity, bad habits, and driving away potential competitors from staying in Congress. 

Far too often, I’ve heard on my local circuit: “Just make the novice flip.” I’ll admit, I’ve told some of my underclassmen to do this as well, because I want them to have the best chance for success. But this isn’t something that can be fixed overnight. This is a bad habit that spreads across the entire national circuit, and no one really sees enough fault in it to actively do something about it. 

Competitors, especially inexperienced ones, are often pressured to do something that they weren’t even expecting to do. Adaptability is an important skill in life and in Congress. But flipping in Congress sucks — not because it’s a broken mechanic, but because it is something that no one wants to do, and oftentimes, the one to cave into it is not the experienced competitor, but rather, the person who gets pressured into the situation without knowing that was even a possibility.

Why face this dilemma when we can all just prep half a speech? We all have our own lives and responsibilities outside of debate — but when it really comes down to it, why create extra pressure on someone who’s just trying to navigate their first tournament? Why make it so much harder for everyone else when having a couple of extra sources or cards on hand could mean you’re prepared to give both the aff and the neg? 

Coming out of my first tournament, I wanted to quit Congress and run back to Public Forum. But after three years of participating in this activity, I acknowledge the challenges of Congress—so much so I believe it is the best debate format simply because of the skills that it will teach you that serve you later on in life. Not everyone will like it, but if prepping just a little bit more helps one more person enter, stay, learn, and grow in this activity, then it will all be worth it. Forcing competitors to flip in the middle of the round has driven away countless participants from engaging in Congressional Debate. Don’t inadvertently prevent others from participating as well, just because you didn’t want to prep.