Congressional Debate

Congressional Debate (also known as Student Congress, Legislative Debate) is a form of interscholastic high school debate in the United States. The National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA), National Catholic Forensic League (NCFL), many state associations and national invitational tournaments offer Congressional Debate as an event. Each organization and tournament offers its own rules, although the National Forensic League has championed standardization since 2007, when it began to ask its districts to use one of a number of procedures for qualification to its National Tournament. The Pakistan Student Congress event is a conference, and not interscholastic competition.

In Congressional Debate, high school students emulate members of the United States Congress by debating bills and resolutions. Before the event, each school submits mock legislation to each tournament. After the legislation has been compiled, it is distributed to each participating team. Each team attempts to research as many topics as possible, with the goal of being able to speak on both sides of every legislation.

Unlike other debate events, students drive the topics for discussion by drafting their own legislation for submission to tournaments. The bills and resolutions must be national in scope, and must either fall within jurisdiction for lawmaking by the United States Congress as a bill, or express a specific position and/or recommendation for further action outside of Congress' jurisdiction as a resolution. A popular type of resolution is to propose amendments to the United States Constitution, which requires action by state legislatures.

Tournaments may review legislation submitted before sharing the overall docket with all participating schools. Contestants from each school will research and prepare arguments both in favor and against each legislation in the docket before arriving at the tournament.

Students attending each tournament are divided up into sections of 10-30 (usually 15-20). These individual rooms are called chambers, and sometimes labeled as a "House", or "Senate," depending on the region and the tournament.

During each phase of a tournament (preliminary and elimination), there is at least one round, often referred to as a "session." The National Forensic League defines a session as having:

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