Seats 500 | Last election June 7, 2015 | |
 | ||
Type Lower house of the Congress of Mexico Founded September 28, 1821 (1821-09-28) President of
the Chamber
of Deputies Javier Bolaños Aguilar (PAN)
Since September 1, 2016 (2016-09-01) Political groups PRI (207)
PAN (109)
PRD (61)
PVEM (41)
MORENA (36)
MC (23)
PANAL (11)
PES (10)
Independent (2) | ||
The Chamber of Deputies (Spanish: Cámara de Diputados) is the lower house of the Congress of the Union, the bicameral legislature of Mexico. The structure and responsibilities of both chambers of Congress are defined in Articles 50 to 70 of the current constitution.
Composition
The Chamber of Deputies is composed of one federal representative (in Spanish: diputado federal) for every 200,000 citizens. Currently (as of 2006 election) there are 500 deputies.
Of these, 300 "majority deputies" are directly elected by plurality from single-member districts, the federal electoral districts. The remaining 200 "party deputies" are assigned through rules of proportional representation. These seats are not tied to districts; rather, they are allocated to parties based on each party's share of the national vote. The 200 party deputies are intended to counterbalance the sectional interests of the district-based representatives. Substitutes are elected at the same time as each deputy, so special elections are rare.
From 1917 to 2015, deputies were barred from serving consecutive terms in accordance with the Constitution's ban on immediate reelection to the legislature. Thus, the Chamber of Deputies was one of the few legislative bodies in the world that was completely renewed at an election. However, this will change at the 2018 elections; deputies are now permitted to run for reelection. Congressional elections held halfway into the president's six year mandate are known as mid-term elections.