Welcome!
Please complete all sections of the form below to submit your legislation for consideration in the upcoming congressional docket. Be sure to follow the correct formatting guidelines when entering your proposal. Once submitted, your legislation will be reviewed and considered for inclusion on the docket. Please note that it is likely that the committee will edit your submission. If your submission is accepted, please refer to the UDCA website for the official version.
New legislation is posted to the UDCA website 4 times during the year: August, October, December, and February. To ensure your legislation is considered for a specific period, please submit this form by the 15th of the month prior (e.g., submit by July 15 for the August cycle).
The Congress Committee Members do not know the names nor schools of the submitters. These reviewers rate each submission on the following 10 criteria. Each reviewer gives a score between 0 and 5. I average the scores of all the reviewers to discover a final score for each submission. Legislation must receive a score of 3.0 or higher to be considered for the UDCA postings. The top 6 scores are immediately posted. All legislation receiving 3.0 or above and not in the top 6 are automatically considered for the next month’s postings.
UDCA Student Congressional Debate Committee Legislation Rubric (click to view)
- Debatability—legislation is clearly controversial (good arguments exist for both sides)
- Recency—legislation is timely with regard to current events
- Newness—legislative issue has not been debated recently/too frequently
- Significance—legislation is not trivial in focus
- Interesting—legislation pertains to issues that students would enjoy debating
- National Focus—legislation must involve national interest and enforcement
- Jurisdiction—legislative interest or enforcement must be under the jurisdiction of the appropriate federal governmental body
- Appropriate—legislation should pertain to issues that teachers deem appropriate for school discussion
- Challenging—legislative issue requires research and critical thinking on the part of the students
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