States counterplan

A states counterplan is an counterplan that is more or less identical to the Affirmative plan, but is implemented at the state level instead of the federal level. They may argue that state-level implementation will be more effective and less expensive, the policy would benefit from jurisdictional competition, or that the implementing the plan at the federal level would violate Congress's constitutional powers.

States counterplans are seen more or less exclusively under domestic resolutions, although similar counterplans may arise when dealing with international actors.

Competition
States counterplans derive competition from the fact that implementing the Affirmative plan on two levels of government would create unnecessary redundancy without achieving additional advantages. Alternatively, because the Supreme Court has consistently held that federal laws override state laws under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution (see, e.g., Prigg v. Pennsylvania), the Affirmative (Federal) plan will take precedence if both were enacted simultaneously. In other words, implementing both plans is the same as just implementing the Affirmative plan.

If the Negative presents disadvantages against the Affirmative plan, such as constitutionality, the counterplan may also be competitive through net benefits.

Theoretical objections
States counterplans are theoretically controversial on several grounds:


 * Multi-actor fiat: States counterplans fiat 50 state governments simultaneously, with each state representing an individual, independent actor. This raises theoretical concerns about utopian fiat. (Main article: Multi-actor fiat)


 * Lack of a real-world parallel: Opponents argue that, because all 50 states rarely work together as a unit, states counterplans are unrealistic as real-world policy alternatives and should be disregarded. Proponents generally respond by pointing that states often do work together as a unit; for example, the Uniform Commercial Code (which governs things like how checks are cashed) was a joint project between all 50 states.

Theoretical support
Some Negative teams argue that states counterplans are legitimate because they allow the Negative team to dispute the part of the resolution specifying a federal actor. An example of this argument is given by Daniel Gaskell, a prominent proponent of states counterplans:

Let's look at the NCFCA resolution this year:


 * Resolved: The United States Federal Government should significantly reform its criminal justice system.

Debaters are expected to make all sorts of arguments about the resolution:


 * We shouldn't significantly reform the criminal justice system; the problems are small.
 * We shouldn't reform the criminal justice system; it's fine the way it is.
 * We shouldn't reform the criminal justice system; the problems are with the laws, not their enforcement.

We're expected to argue about "should", "significantly", "reform", "its", and "criminal justice system". So why aren't we expected to argue about "The United States Federal Government"?

A states counterplan is just like a significance argument: it tries to prove that part of the resolution is false (in this case, "The United States Federal Government should".) If you're OK with counterplans theoretically, it makes no sense to allow arguments about the second half of the resolution while shunning arguments about the first half.

In addition, Negative teams may argue that the distribution of power between the federal government and state governments is a very important, real-world issue, and thus should be allowed despite concerns about abuse. For example, some politicians holding office at the federal level are pushing for air quality to be regulated on a state-by-state basis. They believe that the possibility for states to take this role is justification against regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. This same principle may be used to attempt to justify states counterplans.