Type Lower House | Seats 257 (List) | |
 | ||
President of the Chamber Emilio Monzó,
PRO
Since 4 December 2015 1st Vice President of the Chamber José Luis Gioja,
PJ - FPV
Since 6 December 2015 First Minority Leader Mario Negri,
UCR - Cambiemos
Since 3 february 2016 Second Minority Leader Hector Recalde,
PJ - FPV
Since 3 february 2016 | ||
The Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Argentine National Congress. The Chamber holds exclusive rights to levy taxes; to draft troops; and to accuse the President, cabinet ministers, and members of the Supreme Court before the Senate.
Contents
Current composition
It has 257 seats and one-half of the members are elected every two years to serve four-year terms by the people of each district (23 provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires) using proportional representation, D'Hondt formula with a 3% of the district registered voters threshold, and the following distribution:
By political groups
All data from official website.
Requirements
In order for an Argentine citizen to be elected to congress, it has to fulfil certain requirements: He or she has to be at least twenty five years old with at least four years of active citizenship and it has to be naturalized in the province that is being elected to or at least have two years of immediate residency in said province, according to art. 48 or the Argentine Constitution.
History
The Chamber of Deputies was provided for in the Constitution of Argentina, ratified on May 1, 1853. Eligibility requisites are that members be at least twenty-five years old, and have been a resident of the province they represent for at least four years; as congressional seats are elected at-large, members nominally represent their province, rather than a district.
Otherwise patterned after Article One of the United States Constitution per legal scholar Juan Bautista Alberdi's treatise, Bases de la Constitución Argentina, the chamber was originally apportioned in one seat per 33,000 inhabitants. The constitution made no provision for a national census, however, and because the Argentine population doubled every twenty years from 1870 to 1930 as a result of immigration (disproportionately benefiting Buenos Aires and the Pampas area provinces), censuses were conducted generationally, rather than every decade, until 1947.
Apportionment controversy
The distribution of the Chamber of Deputies is regulated since 1983 by Law 22.847, also called Ley Bignone, enacted by the last Argentine dictator, General Reynaldo Bignone, ahead of the 1983 general elections. This law established that, initially, each province shall have one deputy per 161,000 inhabitants, with standard rounding; after this is calculated, each province is granted three more deputies. If a province has fewer than five deputies, the number of deputies for that province is increased to reach that minimum.
Controversially, apportionment remains based on the 1980 population census, and has not been modified since 1983; national censuses since then have been conducted in 1991, 2001, and 2010. The minimum of five seat per province allots the smaller ones a disproportionately large representation, as well. Accordingly, this distribution does not reflect Argentina's current population balance.
Presidents of the Chamber
The President of the Chamber is elected by the majority caucus. The officeholders for this post since 1983 have been:
Current authorities
Leadership positions include:
2011 election
* Total includes all parties in FAP, led by the Socialist Party.
2009 election
See List of current Argentine Deputies and Argentine legislative election, 2009
2007 election
See Argentine general election, 2007