Congress Legislation Call: Submit Bills for Upcoming NOF Tournaments
Congressional Debate thrives when students engage directly with the legislative process… not just as speakers, but as authors and advocates. To support strong, student-driven debate, National Online Forensics is calling on participating programs to submit legislation for each Congress tournament they attend this season.
To submit legislation, please send completed items to the tournament director listed on forensicstournament.net via email.
What We’re Asking From Programs
For every NOF tournament your team attends, we ask that each school submit at least one piece of legislation (a bill or resolution) for Congressional Debate.
Submissions should be completed in advance of the tournament
Legislation submitted in the previous month will be used for the upcoming tournament
All submissions will be reviewed and lightly edited by NOF staff for clarity and debatability before publication
Once finalized, legislation will be released as part of the official Congress docket and published with the name of the submitting program.
How to Format Your Legislation
To ensure consistency and accessibility across all tournaments, we ask that programs format their submissions using Congress Docket:
This platform makes it easy to:
Follow standard Congressional Debate formatting
Clearly structure bills and resolutions
Submit legislation in a format that’s ready for competition
Programs may submit legislation directly through this format and then share their completed submission with NOF as instructed in tournament communications.
Why Submitting Legislation Matters
Submitting legislation isn’t just a requirement — it’s a competitive advantage for your students.
When your program authors legislation:
Your students are eligible for authorship speeches, which increases opportunities to speak early in the round
Earlier speaking positions often lead to stronger engagement, better questioning, and more strategic participation throughout the session
Students gain valuable experience crafting policy arguments from the ground up
In short: submitting legislation helps your students speak more, earlier, and with greater ownership in Congress rounds.
If you have questions about submissions, formatting, or deadlines, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the tournament staff. We appreciate your continued partnership and look forward to seeing your students’ ideas take the floor.
With any questions, please reach out to alexandra@nationalonlineforensics.org. Good luck!