1NC
-- Aff must specify which branch passes the plan – they don’t
-- Vote Neg –
1. Ground – robs courts, congress, executive counterplans, agent specific disads and
case arguments
2. Conditionality – “resolved” means a “firm course of action” – not specifying
allows them to shift and clarify in the 2AC
3. No solvency – there’s no such actor as the “Federal Government”, only specific
branches
Brovero 94 (Adrienne, Debate Coach, “Immigration Policies”, Debater’s Research Guide,
http://www.wfu.edu/Student-organizations/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/Brovero1994Immigration.htm)
The problem is not that there is not a plan; this time there is one. The problem is that there is no agent specified.
The federal government does not enact policies, agents or agencies within the federal government enact
policies. The agent enacting a policy is a very important aspect of the policy. For some of the same reasons the
affirmative team should specify a plan of action, the affirmative team should specify an agent of action.
2NC Education Impact
Decision-making: agent specification is necessary for rigorous policy analysis
Heminway 5 (Joan MacLeod , Associate Professor – University of Tennessee College of Law, “Rock,
Paper, Scissors: Choosing the Right Vehicle for Federal Corporate Governance Initiatives”, Fordham
Journal of Corporate & Financial Law, 10 Fordham J. Corp. & Fin. L. 225)
Many legal scholars - and others - are quick to propose the enactment or adoption of specific legal rules
without articulating, on any [*226] reasoned basis, the appropriate institutional vehicle by which the
rule should be enacted or adopted. 2 Some rulemaking proposals ignore issues of institutional choice
altogether. Others seemingly suggest a path for enactment or adoption of the proposed rule based on an
overly simplistic or, in some cases, nonexistent analysis. Despite this relative lack of attention to issues of
institutional choice in proposals for legal change, the institutional vehicle chosen for enactment or adoption
of a legal rule may be important. Among other things, institutional choice may impact the probability of
enactment, as well as the form, content, efficacy, or cost of the rule. 3 With these and other related issues
in mind, this article focuses on decision making in federal jurisprudence; 4 more specifically, it focuses on
identifying and analyzing important considerations involved in determining whether a desired federal rule
of corporate governance 5 optimally should be legislated by the U.S. Congress, adopted by the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), or instituted by the federal judiciary. The schoolyard game
of RPS, a game that is designed to be used by the players to make decisions, 6 is an analog to
this [*227] determinative process in a number of respects. Reflecting on the brief quote at the beginning
of this article, for example, one might observe that the process of choosing and implementing the right
vehicle for federal corporate governance initiatives, like RPS, often requires wit, 7 speed, 8 dexterity, 9 and
strategy 10 and is characterized, in many cases, by honorable players 11 who are willing commit to the
outcome of that [*228] process. 12 However, unlike RPS, this article offers a rigorous, reasoned model
for decision making, based on foundational principles drawn from (among other disciplines) constitutional
law, administrative law, legislative process, political science, and economics. 13 The primary objective of
this article is the encouragement of an analytical, comparative approach to institutional choice 14 in the
establishment of federal rules of corporate governance. Toward that end, the article proposes a construct for
making institutional choice decisions - a group [*229] of four elements that a rule proponent 15 should
consider in deciding whether a particular rule of corporate governance at the federal level should be
enacted by Congress, promulgated by the SEC, or ordered by a federal court. 16 Because this article is
foundational in its approach, most of the article is spent identifying, defining, and otherwise explaining
these component elements of the suggested decisionmaking model. The article also, however, instructs the
reader in how to employ the proposed model in determining institutional choice in federal corporate
governance rulemaking.
2NC Overview
-- Offense/defense – if specification is better, its a voting issue even if their
interpretation is reasonable – it’s the only non-arbitrary way to determine
procedurals – checks judge intervention which ruins fairness.
Specification is key to all strategy –
A) Agent-based strategies are educational core ground – vast literature exists for
topic-specific agent trade-off disads, specific politics or court disad links,
presidential power disads, etc. along with in-depth debates over agent, delegation, or
other process counterplans. These are the only core ground because the topic is so
diverse – the only stable action relates to the actor. Core ground is key to fairness:
it’s the only thing we can consistently prepare.
B) Allows conditionality – they can clarify the plan to an alternate actor in the 2AC
to avoid offense and manipulate the plan to their advantage
C) Crucial to pre-round prep – the plan text is the most mainstream form of
disclosure and locus of neg strategy formulation before the round – anything else
skews time allocation. Adequate pre-round prep is key to fair debate.
D) No solvency – the federal government does not exist. Extend Brovero – vote neg
on presumption because the plan does nothing
This has to be a voter – our strategy arguments implicate the way the whole debate
is framed and any other remedy would create a no-cost burden for the Aff by
forcing the negative to have to go for theory just to get back to square one.
A2: Cross-X Checks
-- Its not binding like other speeches and many judges don’t pay attention – not
sufficient for negative ground.
-- Specification in the plan is key to textual competition for agent counterplans –
otherwise the 2AC could permute even if they functionally allow it to compete.
Textual competition is best – its most objective and avoids the thousands of bad
counterplan like Consultation and Conditions which hurt education. Agent
counterplans are key to negative strategy because disads alone can’t outweigh large
Aff harm areas on this topic.
-- Clarification in cross-x denies pre-round preparation which is crucial to fair and
educational debates – it’s the time when the entire negative strategy is formulated –
otherwise we lose the half hour before debates and all of the time during the 1AC
because we have to wait for their answer in C-X
A2: Infinitely Regressive / Unpredictable
-- Our interpretation solves this argument – it only allows the Aff to specify one of
the three main branches of the government – Courts, Congress, or Executive –
which we’d be prepared to debate.
-- Not specifying is worse – they could potentially clarify any one of these actors in
the 2AC to create the same effect but worse because then we couldn’t prepare for it
before the round which is when we formulate our strategy.
-- Specification can only augment negative ground – either literature exists for a
given agent in the area of the Aff, and we’ll have researched and prepared a
strategy to that, or literature won’t exist and the Aff won’t be able to defend their
actor against logical agent counterplans – meaning we’ll always have something to
say
-- Our ground arguments outweigh – even if sometimes an Aff will choose an
unpredictable actor, in the majority of cases the negative will be much helped by
being able to access topic-specific agent arguments – which is explained in the
overview
A2: No Resolutional Basis
-- Theoretical arguments shouldn’t need grounding in the resolution. Debate is a
game without rules, so conventions should be crafted artificially in the most fair
manner. Otherwise, the Aff wouldn’t be able to win on PICs or Conditionality bad.
-- We do have a resolutional basis – they’ve conceded our 1NC definition of
‘Resolved’ requiring a firm course of action which necessitates a stable agent. And,
‘the’ requires specification
Random House 6 (Unabridged Dictionary, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/the)
(used, esp. before a noun, with a specifying or particularizing effect, as opposed to the indefinite or
generalizing force of the indefinite article a or an): the book you gave me; Come into the house.
-- Even if they win this, it’s a reason to vote Negative – if the resolution doesn’t
require an agent, and we win that that is bad, you should vote Negative to censure
the resolution for being fundamentally unfair.
A2: Wrong Remedy / Not A Voting Issue
-- Lack of specification has to be a voting issue – otherwise the Affirmative get what
it wants by denying the 1NC its best links and then later clarifying. It skews the
negative by forcing us to spend time to extend theory just to get back to square one.
-- Potential abuse is a voting issue – if we win competing interpretations then you
should view this round as one that happens in every debate – so even if there’s no inround abuse, it could occur other times.
-- There’s in-round abuse -_____________________________________________________.
A2: No Ground Loss
-- There’s ground loss – agent specific strategies, disads, counterplans, case
arguments – that in the overview. This is 90% of the debate.
Elmore 80 (Professor of Public Affairs – University of Washington, Political Science Quarterly, p. 605)
The emergence of implementation as a subject for policy analysis coincides closely with the discovery by
policy analysts that decisions are not self-executing. Analysis of policy choices matter very little if the
mechanism for implementing those choices is poorly understood in answering the question, "What
percentage of the work of achieving a desired governmental action is done when the preferred analytic
alternative has been identified?" Allison estimated that in the normal case, it was about 10 percent, leaving
the remaining 90 percent in the realm of implementation.
-- Even if some ground exists, they still rob us of the core structural ground that is
built in to the resolution – that ground is key to fairness and negative strategy
because it’s the only thing we can consistently prepare.
-- Doesn’t solve – the arguments they allow favor the Aff because they’re specific to
the plan – err Neg on theory and prefer Negative strategy to Affirmative ground –
the Aff has structural advantages which already give them a bias like infinite prep
time to create their Affirmative, the ability to choose a strategic area of the topic for
the 1AC, and the first and last speech – meaning they should be held to the
reciprocal burden of providing an acceptable amount of negative ground.
-- Ultimately, this is only defense – the ground they provide is also included in our
interpretation – there’s only a risk they deny the negative arguments about the
agent.
A2: No Right To Arguments
-- There’s a right to agent arguments – the actor is the only stable thing in the
resolution making it a core component of Negative ground. Other links are too fluid
to constantly prepare.
-- The negative needs all the ground they can get -- you should err neg on theory and
prefer Negative strategy to Affirmative ground – the Aff has structural advantages
which already give them a bias like infinite prep time to create their Affirmative, the
ability to choose a strategic area of the topic for the 1AC, and the first and last
speech – meaning they should be held to the reciprocal burden of providing an
acceptable amount of negative ground.
A2: Agent Counterplans Bad
-- Not offense – if Agent Counterplans are bad, then Affs will always be able to win
those counterplans are theoretically illegitimate anyway, so our interpretation
wouldn’t allow them.
-- Agent counterplans are good – first, defense:
( ) Literature and net-benefits check unpredictable or unbeatable counterplans
( ) No ground loss – they just have to leverage their agent to create a solvency
deficit. Its not difficult to do, especially if the Aff gets to choose their agent.
( ) They don’t hurt topic-specific education – the interaction between _____ and
political process is relevant and matters anytime the Aff makes a solvency deficit
claim
( ) Disads alone don’t check because lack of specification denies them and they
alone can’t outweigh large case areas
-- Now, offense:
( ) Creates responsible plan writing by forcing the Aff to defend all parts of the plan
( ) Most real world – debates between agents is frequently relevant and important
for policymakers
( ) Key to search for the Best Policy Option which is key to real world education
( ) Key to education – allows us to learn about the political process, policy
implementation, workings of the government
( ) Focuses the debate on the solvency mechanism which is Aff ground – should be
better for them.
( ) Increases Aff ground – they can read add-ons or disads to the alternate agent we
pick
( ) Key to negative flexibility – we should have all the options available to negate the
Aff
( ) Alternative is worse – without tangentially specific agent counterplans, teams
will just read hyper-generic consultation or conditions counterplans which turn
back their offense.
A2: C/I – Normal Means
-- Doesn’t solve ground–
A) ‘Normal means’ is impossible to define and because they Aff has the ability to
strategically choose their case area they can exploit multiple agents to avoid our
links.
B) Denies counterplan competition because normal means doesn’t affect textual
competition, which is the reigning standard and the Aff can functionally permute to
do their plan in abnormal means.
-- Placing the burden on the Negative to determine normal means is unfair – there
are tons of Affs with unclear actors, it’d be impossible for us to prepare for all of
them.
-- Still allows the Aff to be conditional because they can read a different piece of
evidence in every 2AC to argue the Aff is done by an alternate agent.
A2: C/I – All Three Branches
-- This interpretation gets them no where – all of our reasons specification is good
are reasons it is bad.
-- This also cuts against their offense about Aff strategy and flexibility because every
Affirmative would never be allowed to specify anything even if it were strategic –
our interpretation is the best middle ground by maximizing negative ground as well.
-- Crushes Aff ground – it forces them to allow counterplans to exclude one
particular agency or actor to compete, which they’d never be able to defeat.
Unbeatable strategies like this make it impossible for the Aff to win, destroying
fairness.
-- Uneducational – no actual policy is enacted through all 3 branches – its totally
contrived
A2: Grammar – ‘The’ = Mass Noun
-- Their interpretation is wrong – ‘The’ only denotes that United States Federal
Government is a proper noun
AHD 00 (American Heritage Dictionary)
the1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (th before a vowel; th before a consonant) def.art.
Used before singular or plural nouns and noun phrases that
denote particular, specified persons or things: the baby; the dress I wore. Used before a noun, and generally stressed, to emphasize one of a group or type
as the most outstanding or prominent: considered Lake Shore Drive to be the neighborhood to live in these days. Used to indicate uniqueness: the Prince
of Wales; the moon. Used before nouns that designate natural phenomena or points of the compass: the weather; a wind from the south. Used as the
equivalent of a possessive adjective before names of some parts of the body: grab him by the neck; an infection of the hand. Used before a noun
specifying a field of endeavor: the law; the film industry; the stage.
Used before a proper name, as of a monument or ship: the
Alamo; the Titanic.
-- In this instance, ground outweighs grammar –
A) The Framers of the resolution are not grammar experts – each syllable was not
mean to be dissected, but rather the resolution was meant to facilitate fair debates –
which ground is key to.
B) Grammar is only useful to define predictable interpretations of the resolution,
which would clearly exist regardless of inclusion of the word ‘the’.
-- Their interpretation is equally ungrammatical – they’ve conceded our definition
of “Resolved” meaning a firm course of action which is impossible without
specification because many possible agents could implement any given plan.
Conditionality 2NC
Extend our argument that a lack of specification makes the Aff conditional. They
could clarify in 2AC that the plan is done by any number of actors to avoid links to
our offense or dodge counterplan competition.
Two impacts –
A) Aff conditionality is uniquely damaging to negative strategy because the plan is
the starting point and locus for debate – allows the Aff to dodge all of the 1NC.
B) Makes them not topical – they’ve conceded our definition of ‘Resolved’ meaning
‘a firm course of action’ which they’re not because their action can be done by
varied actors. Topicality is a voting issue for fairness and jurisdiction.
Solvency 2NC
They’ve conceded the solvency implication in the 1NC – there’s no such actor as the
“United States Federal Government”, only specific bodies like the Congress,
Supreme Court, or Executive agencies. Their plan does nothing because their actor
doesn’t exist and you should vote neg on presumption – extend Brovero
Even if you think this argument is bad, you should still vote here. It was clearly
marked in the 1NC, they had time in the 2AC to answer it and didn’t. Don’t allow
new 1AR answers because it encourages sandbagging and skews negative block
strategy.
Err Neg 2NC
Err neg on theory and prefer Negative strategy to Affirmative ground – the Aff has
structural advantages which already give them a bias like infinite prep time to
create their Affirmative, the ability to choose a strategic area of the topic for the
1AC, and the first and last speech – meaning they should be held to the reciprocal
burden of providing an acceptable amount of negative ground.
No Counter-Interpretation 2NC
They don’t have a counter-interpretation, so even if our interpretation is a little bad
its better than nothing and if they don’t meet it, they should lose. Don’t allow new
1AR interpretations because it’s the locus of a theory debate, encourages sandbagging, skews negative block strategy, and it was their fault for not making one in
the 2AC.
Fairness 1st 2NC
Fairness has to come first – otherwise everyone would quit, destroying debate and it
creates the very forum of equitable debate which is a pre-requisite for education.
Their forms of education can be reproduced in other forums – debate is a game
which necessities fair rules otherwise no one would play it.