For the majority of PF’s history, most judges have rejected negative fiat. The most common argument against counterplans is an appeal to the NSDA rule book, which states that neither plans nor counterplans are allowed. In theory debates, this standard is called jurisdiction. While there are strategic ways to theoretically exclude negative fiat from debate, jurisdiction, even at tournaments explicitly using the NSDA rules, is not one of them.

To understand why, we need a baseline understanding of what the rules actually say about counterplans. As of November 12, the High School Unified Manual says the following:

“Plans/Counterplans: In Public Forum Debate, the Association defines a plan or counterplan as a formalized, comprehensive proposal for implementation. Neither the pro or con side is permitted to offer a plan or counterplan; rather, they should offer reasoning to support a position of advocacy. Debaters may offer generalized, practical solutions.”

With this text in mind, I’ll present the case against jurisdiction as a standard when rejecting counter advocacies.

1. The association defines plans and counterplans the exact same way: “a formalized, comprehensive proposal for implementation.”

2. The pro is explicitly allowed to advocate for the entirety of the resolution.

3. The resolution itself therefore cannot be considered a “formalized comprehensive proposal for implementation.”

4. For example, consider a past resolution: “The United States federal government should ban single-use plastics.

5. A comparably specific counter advocacy might be “The United States federal government should adopt a carbon tax.”

6. This counter advocacy is not a “formalized, comprehensive proposal for implementation” because it is no more formalized nor comprehensive than the resolution.

7. Therefore, the con is allowed to “offer reasoning to support a position of advocacy” including the counter advocacy outlined above.

In short, if the NSDA prohibits formalized proposals but allows generalized advocacies, then a jurisdictional argument rejecting all counter advocacies misinterprets the intent of the rule book. My strategic advice for negative teams is to refer to what we would normally call counterplans as “counter advocacies” during debates.

Finally, there are many common misconceptions about the burdens of proof and rejoinder and their application to PF. The rules explicitly state that “Public Forum Debate focuses on advocacy of a position derived from the issues presented in the resolution, not a prescribed set of burdens.” As long as we accept traditional opportunity cost logic (which is a separate question from jurisdiction), it’s clear that a con team arguing for an alternate advocacy attempting to solve the harms presented in the 1AC would answer the resolutional question by presenting a unique opportunity cost disadvantage.

So how should we go for theory against counter advocacies? I think there are two legitimate ways to make the case against negative fiat. First, is the ongoing philosophical debate between ethical actualism and ethical possibilism. Actualism might be ahead (?) which could imply that negative fiat doesn’t rejoin the Aff. Second, teams can point out that counter advocacies don’t disprove the truth of the resolution because they only show that the resolution would be a good idea if something that isn’t happening did happen. These arguments can both be developed further, but that isn’t the point of this article.

If you’re interested in learning how to execute counterplans in PF, you should watch the lecture posted on the Circuit Skillbuilder YouTube Channel.

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