Congress

NSDA defines Congress Debate as "a simulation of the real United States legislature. A group of 10-25 students, called a Chamber, will compete in a legislative session. A series of bills and resolutions will be proposed by students from various schools. Students in turn will be selected by a presiding officer — a student elected to conduct the business of the round — to give speeches both advocating for and encouraging the defeat of the measure in front of them. Following each speech, competitors will be able to pose questions of the speaker. Once debate is exhausted on a particular item, the chamber will vote either to pass or fail the legislation, and debate moves on to the next item."

In other words, Congress Debate is a mock-stimulation of passing student-written bills and resolutions in the Senate/House of Representatives. You give 3-minute speeches to affirm and/or negate a multitude of topics, followed by a 2-minute cross examination period. One student is elected to be a PO per session, and they run the chamber. After everyone exhausts debating a particular topic, everyone votes to move to the next topic and votes to pass or fail the current topic.

TLDR: Congress Debate is what Congress would look like if it were productive.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/230067413

Some things to note:

• The 2 people in the back are presiding officers (PO). They run the chamber, which entails keeping order in the chamber, deciding who gets to give speeches and ask questions, and setting the order of legislation (docket). There is typically 1 PO per session.

• Everybody else in the chamber are debaters. They get to give speeches and ask the current speaker questions.