I recently went to a Model Congress conference and I LOVED it (not as much as MUN though) so I thought I’d deviate slightly from my usual content and talk about MC. The committees are WAY smaller, about 15-20 people but they’re always SO GOOD.

Everyone in my committee gave great speeches and sounded confident when they spoke. I would say this type of conference is actually more difficult for me because there was more impromptu speaking.

You have to make a 4 minute con speech on the fly! So insanely fun yet difficult at the same time. 

I’ll talk quickly about the flow of debate within Model Congress now.

So basically everyone has to write a bill which they present within their committee. For example you might be in the Health, Education, and Labor senate while someone else is in the Environmental senate. There’s a clear specialization within each committee.

The writer of the bill then presents it in a four minute speech then someone makes a 4 minute con speech after that. Next, a bunch of people give 2 minute speeches on either the pro or con side. It’s EXTREMELY important that you write a controversial bill that can be debated extensively.

Beyond this, you can also make amendments to each bill. For example, you’ll send a note to your chair with something like “change “this bill goes into action 41 days after its passage to 91 says.” A lot of people will make stupid amendments like format changes but I would suggest doing something more substantive.

Then after this some bills will be chosen to go to full house where the entire senate debates it. Then, if it passes you might get to go to the cabinet to make a speech.

I actually got to do this and it was SO FUN. My speech didn’t pass in my initial committee but it was still chosen to go to full house with a recommendation to “not pass it” but it still passed. Then the cabinet called me up and I made a 4 minute speech to them then answered questions for about 6 minutes.

Overall a great experience.

This conference was really fun for me because I gavelled and I would go to another for sure! Thanks for reading