AMENDMENTS
What are Amendments Anyway?
Picture this: you open up a bill and there’s something wrong. An otherwise debatable and balanced bill has a key typo or flaw in its phrasing or implementation; one that could turn the debate from one of real argumentation and weighing into petty semantics. The horror!
But luckily for your peers, you’ve got just the solution: an amendment. These are specific changes to an item of legislation, explaining exactly which words they modify, and not changing the intent of the legislation itself (germane). An amendment not pertinent is ruled dilatory.
Amendments are pretty rare and frowned upon in Congress nowadays, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Slowly but surely, they are making their way back into the mainstream, making now the perfect time to figure them out. Let’s start by analyzing why you’d want to propose one in the first place.
Should you propose amendments? It depends.
As stated earlier, proposing amendments in Congress is a highly contentious practice, but that doesn’t mean it can’t benefit you. Here is the definitive list of situations in which it would make sense to propose an amendment, ordered by least to most controversial:
The legislation has a clear typo or error that impedes its implementation or purpose. This is the most common situation in which an amendment is proposed, and is often the least controversial. Proposing amendments in these cases will often net you brownie points from the judge for taking the initiative to make the debate more substantive by avoiding semantics and petty nitpicking of the bill.
Amendments like these will often pass without need for you to give a speech on your amendment. The only risk here is that these amendments are not always strictly necessary; especially in higher caliber rounds where no one was going to give a semantical nitpicky speech in the first place. However, as long as you read the room and avoid wasting too much time, this usually won’t cause much of a stir.
The legislation is ambiguous, contradictory, or infeasible. These are situations where the legislation sets out to achieve a specific goal, but either doesn’t clearly define, doesn’t correctly select, or doesn’t adequately resource the steps it needs to get there.
For example, a bill to expand food stamp access that leaves implementation to the EPA instead of the FNS and doesn’t increase funding for the necessary departments at all. These amendments are often the rarest, since most of the time debaters are willing to fill in the gaps on their own. However, it still may be a solid way to stand out if the chamber calls for it.
The legislation’s implementation impedes its intent. These are situations where you agree with a piece of legislation’s intent (e.g. to expand the Supreme Court), but not its implementation (e.g. by giving the President the power to appoint 4 new justices at the same time). By adding a stipulation that alters the implementation (e.g. by staggering the appointments by 2 years each), you bring new energy to the debate and keep it to being about the bill’s intent, and not petty squabbling about its implementation.
Unfortunately, because many debaters often have specific prep for the implementation of a given bill (no matter how flawed and disagreeable it may be), they won’t always be willing to pass these sorts of amendments (or even open debate on them). However, if you have a few buddies in the chamber that could help make this happen, it’s always a solid option. Even if it fails, you can use it as leverage in CX for debaters on the neg who have implementation-based arguments.
Amendment Procedure
This is highly dependent on the rules of the circuit or tournament you are attending, but for our reference, we’ll work with the NSDA Amendment Rules (page 36). Successfully passing an amendment requires four steps:
Filing Amendments
Amendments must be presented in writing. Many parliamentarians will refuse to consider an amendment unless it is submitted using the NSDA amendment form. As you will notice, all it will primarily require is for you to specifically note which lines of the legislation you want to amend and how. After this is done, you must raise a point of personal privilege to approach the chair to present your amendment, and they will then determine if it it germane (doesn’t change the legislation’s intent) or dilatory.
Motion to Amend
If the parliamentarian rules your amendment germane, you may then make a motion to amend the legislation, which requires a 1/3 second just to open the floor for it to be debated or voted on. For the most part, if an amendment is already agreed upon, it can be passed without debate, but sometimes, the one who proposed it will give a sponsorship of their amendment.
Debate Phase
This brings us to the next phase, wherein said sponsor can give a speech supporting their amendment with the same precedence and time rules as a regular debate, and other speakers may also speak on the amendment if they wish. After this period is over, the amendment may be voted on.
Motion to Previous Question On Amendment
After the motion to previous question on the amendment has been raised, it will pass or fail just like a regular piece of legislation: with a majority vote.
However, just because this is the specifically laid out procedure for amendments doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be gone about this way. This takes us to the Amendment Strategy Metagame.
Amendment Strategy
You have three options for the strategy you’d like to adopt regarding your amendment:
a. Giving a speech pre-amendment. Especially in the hostile environment of a highly competitive round, this is often the safest way to guarantee an amendment is actually voted on. You don’t need any express permission to talk about your upcoming amendment in your speech, so it is impossible for your peers to circumvent your proposal reaching the panel of judges before it is too late. However, there is always the risk that the amendment is ruled dilatory after you make your speech.
b. Giving a speech in debate phase. If you can manage to reach the stage of debate where people are actually open to debating your amendment, you are now in prime position to give a sponsorship on your amendment. Especially if your amendment isn’t the easiest to follow or explain, it’s useful to have the whole three minutes to speak about it as opposed to cramming it into a regular negation speech. The other upside to this strategy is that it allows other debaters to give speeches on your amendment as well, which gives it more legitimacy and makes everyone involved stand out. Once again, the only risk here is that you may not be able to reach this phase, or the traditional risk of all amendments seeming gimmicky and unnecessary to some judges.
i. Example: Tyler Luu in 2022 TOC Finals
c. Giving a speech post amendment. This is the rarest strategy of them all, since it requires you to successfully pass an amendment before ever giving a speech in support of why it would be necessary. For this, I’d recommend making this a smaller component of your speech on the bill, potentially as a passing reference to why the bill in its new form alleviates some of the negation’s arguments (which also opens the door for you calling out their failure to adjust)
Check out this example of giving a speech pre-amendment by Nick Ostheimer in 2024 TOC Finals
Check out this video example from Tyler Luu in 2022 TOC Finals
FYI: Unfortunately, the preview is disabled, so you must watch directly on Youtube's site...
Conclusion & Best Practices
Like everything else in debate, proposing an amendment is tricky and context-dependent. If you really believe it will enhance the debate and make you stand out, go for it. However, you’ll definitely want to make sure that your judges, chamber, and presiding officer are on board with the procedure before you begin it. But if so, you’ll have a wonderful opportunity to not just enhance the debate, but the activity of Congress as a whole.