A Plea for Creativity in Congress

Nearly every Congressional Debate round that I have judged, spectated, or participated in over the course of the last four years has been essentially the same. Saying this may earn some backlash, and while it does make sense that each round should look similar (given Congressional Debate has become increasingly standardized in terms of procedure) it strikes me as frustrating that each round I have viewed is devoid of originality, and instead appears to unfold in an identical manner to the very last round. Now, the general themes and ‘characters’ of the round seemingly reappear regardless of where on the circuit the round is happening.

The purpose of this article is not to come across as a bitter writer who believes that their ‘era’ of debate was better. Instead the focus I want to convey is that congress is simply boring and lacks the creativity that has historically drawn competitors to this debate-speech hybrid event as well as offer new perspectives on how our community as a whole can address these issues. Frankly, this issue doesn’t just fall on the backs of competitors, but on judges and coaches to be advocates for risk.

Before I begin diving into my analysis as to why congress is devoid of creativity, I want to first address two other articles, ‘Congress is Boring’ and ‘The Future of Congress’ by Nicholas Ostheimer and Jack Beery respectively.

In Ostheimer’s article, he does a phenomenal job of articulating how Congressional Debate has essentially shifted from a diverse group of different approaches and roleplay elements to being a strangely morphed version of public forum debate, something that he accurately points out is not meant to be the point of congress. Similarly, Beery argues in his own article that the beauty of the technical aspects of Congressional Debate, such as motions and amendments, have been shunned to the point where they are absent. He summarizes it best when he mentions that, “No one participates in them because it's ‘taboo’ to do so and go against the normal flow of a round”.

While both of these writers and competitors are assuredly correct in their statements and advocacy, the focus of this article will bring new commentary and attention to what judges, coaches, and advocates for congressional debate can do to allow for more risk and creativity in debate.

To put it simply, I firmly believe that the issue we are seeing with Congress having lost its creativity is rooted in competitors’ fears of upsetting judges. Risk is not rewarded like the NSDA Congressional Debate manual says it is, rather the opposite is true. Risk is frequently penalized by judges, discouraged by coaches, and negatively highlighted by onlookers of the activity.

To better illustrate this idea, look no further than any national circuit tournament: stylistically, most national circuit congressional debaters are very polished, have similar speaking styles that follow similar formats, rhetoric can be similar sounding, and nearly nobody is willing to say anything that could be deemed “unprofessional” or “different”. That’s exactly the issue, unprofessional has become synonymous with difference in congressional debate, and oftentimes judges are not willing to value the uniqueness of different stylistic approaches in this event.

Yet it wasn’t always this way, in fact in Adam Jacobi’s written history of Congressional Debate, he outlines how the event, in its early infancy, was a mixture of different approaches. Some debaters from Ohio may have tapped into the ‘roleplay’ elements, whereas a debater from California may have prided themselves on maneuvering the road through a myriad of motions and amendments, and a debater from Texas may have brought a style that represents modern day congress. The point being, national circuit tournaments used to be more unique and presented a platform for unique styles and approaches to battle it out for supremacy.

I’d even be willing to argue that this approach, although less standardized and perhaps a little less efficient, presented a golden era for uniqueness and creativity in congressional debate. Creativity was truly rewarded, and judges at national circuit tournaments became accustomed to valuing the different styles at these tournaments. Yet, it is important for us to then ask the crucial question: If unique congress styles from different districts were so great, why didn’t it stick around? Further, we need to ponder how embracing our different approaches in congressional debate is excellent for an equitable future.

Beginning with the problem: It is clear that judges, especially those who come from PF, LD, and Policy, have a preferred style of debate. Conceptually, this makes sense as they carry expertise from fields of debate that are perhaps more structured and in some ways can limit the extent to which debaters can express themselves. Therefore, when these judges are placed in the judging pool for congressional debate there is an obvious translation to how they judge. Similarly, congress judges may have a similar problem as they may see more established congressional debate judges following a more rigid approach, this engulfing the entirety of the event’s judging pool in being more rigid itself and lacking widespread acceptance for unique speakers.

That is the problem. We have, as a community, made it acceptable to penalize creativity at all avenues, especially in the way new judges look at experienced judges for help in developing their congress judging philosophy. Further, we haven’t done enough to express just how much congressional debate relies on unique approaches and creativity given the nature of simulating a legislative session. When this happens, especially over years, it becomes harder and harder for unique styles to have any wide-scale success.

Shifting gears away from the problem itself, let’s understand the implications of allowing congress to be bogged down by standardization and dullness. For starters standardization is often costly, as the desired national circuit style is typically obtained through attending costly camps and spending thousands of dollars attending large tournaments to learn this style. Not only is it prohibitive to those who don’t have that kind of money, but this is only reinforced at all levels of debate when debaters who can’t afford to fully realize this ‘desired’ style are repeatedly defeated in important rounds. Furthermore, and perhaps more obvious, is that Congress experiences a form of ‘brain drain’. Similar to how a country may lose its most crucial workers, many former congressional debaters will tell you that congress is boring (In fact, we have an article on just that) and cite the dullness of the event as the reason they leave it, or as the reason they quit debate overall. This not only causes the event to lose out on some of its brightest stars, but also robs competitors of the joy of civics which are most closely displayed in this event.

Fixing this problem is an immediate need within the debate community. Yet, in a pragmatic way, it is a problem that I don’t foresee many individuals jumping to solve. While it is true that the current standardization of congress works for those who have the resources to master the style, the blend of stylistic approaches that congress was intended to bring together could be the lifeblood of future debaters. Yet, with an overhaul of judging philosophies, coaching approaches, and the support of our community, we can answer this plea for creativity.

Specifically with overhauling the way we view unique styles, there should be more done to explain these different styles and the historical approaches that have been scattered throughout congressional debate. This could take the form of giving judges a de facto history lesson about Congress which could help form an appreciation of different styles. While not every judge will respond to this, it is my belief that many judges will view a brief history of different styles in congressional debate could add extra merit to calls for an open mind that can occur during judge training.

Moving next towards the approaches that judges instill into their congressional debaters, it could be said that showing an appreciation for unique styles in practice could make positive waves of change in competition. This could look like coaches enforcing a less rigid structure for how to approach congress ‘correctly’ in terms of style or having inter-school scrimmages online using mediums such as the Springboard Scrimmage Series or other online scrimmage sources to expose new debaters (and experienced debaters too) to a variety of stylistic approaches that can be successful in the long run.

In many ways, I am pleading with the debate community to embrace creativity in our approaches. Whether that be humor, speaking style, movements, or our general philosophies to this event: We need to do a better job of accepting varying styles as a beneficial aspect to this event in order to truly make congress the beautiful event it was intended to be.