Counterplans
Stanford National Debate Institute
Summer 2012
Competition
Competition Defined
 The counterplan alone is
better than the plan alone
or any combination of the
plan and the counterplan.
 Competes through Net
Benefits
 NET BENEFITS:
CP>CP+Plan or CP
 CP+Plan: the permutation.
 Three types
 Synthetic-All of the plan
plus some of the CP
 Intrinsic- All of the plan
and some or none of the
counterplan plus
something not in either the
plan or the counterplan
 Severance-Part of the plan
and part of the counterplan
Status of the CP
 Conditionality: can kick the counterplan at anytime,
including by the judge if the 2ar proves the cp is not
competitive
 Dispositionality: Can kick the counterplan ONLY if
there is a permutation
 Unconditionality: Can never kick the CP.
Types
 Consult
 Condition
 Agent
 PIC’s
 International Actor
 Advantage
 Uniqueness
Topic Counterplans: States
CP
 Vanilla States CP
 Text: The Fifty States and all the territories should
< insert plan>
 Net Benefits: Any thing that links to the USFG
 Politics
 Federalism
 Spending
Lopez
 Text: The United States Supreme Court
should, in a narrow ruling on the next
available test case, rule that federal
authority over the provisions of the plan
violates the Tenth Amendment and
devolve authority to the fifty states and
relevant territories.

Uniform Acts
 “In the United States, a Uniform Act is a proposed state law
drafted by the U.S. Uniform Law Commission (ULC) and
approved by its sponsor, the National Conference of
Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL).”
 AND
 “The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State
Laws (NCCUSL) is a body of lawyers, both private practitioners
and government attorneys; judges, both state and federal; and law
professors, typically appointed by the governor of each state. The
NCCUSL drafts laws on a variety of subjects and proposes them
for enactment by each state, the District of Columbia, the U.S.
Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. NCCUSL was established in 1892.
The NCCUSL, while influential, does not have any direct
legislative power itself; uniform acts become laws only to the
extent they are enacted into law by state legislatures.”
UA cont’d
 “ Among the most influential uniform acts are the
Uniform Commercial Code, Uniform Probate Code,
Uniform Trust Code, Uniform Partnership Act, Uniform
Limited Liability Company Act, Uniform Transfers to
Minors Act, Uniform Certification of Questions of Law
Act, Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act,
Uniform Controlled Substances Act, Uniform Arbitration
Act, Uniform Environmental Covenants Act, Uniform
Conservation Easements Act, Uniform Management of
Institutional Funds Act, Uniform Interstate Family
Support Act, Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and
Enforcement Act, and Uniform Anatomical Gift Act.
However, there are well over 100 uniform acts.”
UA cont’d
 Text: The Uniform Law
Commission will submit
to the fifty states and all
relevant territories for
ratification a uniform act
to [blank].
UA cont’d
 Uniform acts solve comparatively better than federal legislation
and avoids the politics/federalism disads
William Henning, 3/15/2011, (Prof. of Law, Univ. of Alabama) "The Uniform law commission and cooperative federalism:
implementing private international law conventions through uniform state laws," p. 39-41
The Uniform Law Commission (ULC) is a non-partisan, nonprofit,
unincorporated association comprised of commissions formed in each state of the
United States and also the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin
Islands. Its mission is “to promote uniformity in the law among the several
States on subjects as to which uniformity is desirable and practicable.”2 In the 117
years of its existence, the ULC has produced hundreds of uniform laws and
forwarded them to the legislatures of its member jurisdictions for enactment, often
with striking and sometimes with universal success.
National Governors
 Same as Uniform act
XO/Courts
Executive Orders
Supreme Court
Rulings
Consult the
States/DC
Best of both worlds
• Opt in clause
• Best answers are
•
Race to the bottom
•
Lack of uniformity
•
Probabilistic Solvency
Privates
 Text: The United States federal government should offer tax
credits to any firms willing to ______ in the United States.
Private funding can fill in and is popular
Reinhardt ‘11
William Reinhardt, His authoritative publication is read monthly in 15 countries by 3,600 senior executives in the
infrastructure project development/construction, finance and facility operations markets, “The Role of Private
Investment in Meeting U.S. Transportation Infrastructure Needs,” May 2011
In September 1990, the ARTBA Board of Directors voted unanimously to authorize the formation of a Public- Private
Partnerships Division as part of the association’s membership structure. The division’s mission since its inception has
been two-fold. First, to develop and help the association move legislative and regulatory recommendations that will
help advance P3s in the marketplace as a means to augment, or supplement, traditional public financing mechanisms.
And the second, to help educate the association’s members, public-sector officials, legislators and the public-at-large
about the value of public-private partnerships in transportation. With the U.S. Congress now developing legislation to
reauthorize the federal highway and transit programs, ARTBA believed it was an ideal time to take an objective look
at where the P3 market stands today after almost two decades of active promotion and assistance at the federal level.
This is particularly important as leaders from both political parties increasingly suggest that private investment
must take on a much larger role in replacing public funding for needed transportation projects now and in the years
ahead. For example, for the past half-dozen years, many advocates of P3s have claimed that anywhere from “$100
billion to $400 billion in private investment” is available for such use.