Argentine Chamber of Deputies

Argentine Chamber of Deputies Honorable Cámara de Diputados de la Nación
Type
Type	Lower House
Leadership
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
Structure
Seats	257 (List)
Political groups	Cambiemos (86)      FpV (72)      UNA (38)      PJ (17)      FAP (8)      FCpS (6)      PpV (6)      JpA (4)      CF (3)      FIT (3)      FCM (3)      BdB (2)      Others (9)
Elections
Voting system	Party-list proportional representation D'Hondt method
Last election	25 October 2015
Next election	22 October 2017
Meeting place
Chamber of Deputies, Argentine Congress, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Website
http://www.diputados.gov.ar

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.

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 province

By political groups

All data from official website.^[1]

Requirements

In order for an Argentine citizen to be elected to congress, they have 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.^[2]

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.^[3]

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:

Term began	Term ended	Officeholder	Party	Province
December 10, 1983	April 3, 1989	Juan Carlos Pugliese	UCR	Buenos Aires Province
April 3, 1989	July 8, 1989	Leopoldo Moreau	UCR	Buenos Aires Province
July 8, 1989	December 10, 1999	Alberto Pierri	PJ	Buenos Aires Province
December 10, 1999	December 10, 2001	Rafael Pascual	UCR	City of Buenos Aires
December 10, 2001	December 10, 2005	Eduardo Camaño	PJ	Buenos Aires Province
December 10, 2005	December 10, 2007	Alberto Balestrini	FPV - PJ	Buenos Aires Province
December 10, 2007	December 6, 2011	Eduardo Fellner	FPV - PJ	Jujuy
December 6, 2011	December 4, 2015	Julián Domínguez	FPV - PJ	Buenos Aires Province
December 4, 2015	to date	Emilio Monzó	PRO-Cambiemos	Buenos Aires Province

Current authorities

Leadership positions include:

Title	Officeholder	Party	Province
Chamber President	Emilio Monzó	PRO-Cambiemos	Buenos Aires Province
First Vice-President	José Luis Gioja	FPV-PJ	San Juan
Second Vice-President	Patricia Giménez	UCR	Mendoza
Third Vice-President	Felipe Solá	PJ-FR	Buenos Aires Province
Parliamentary Secretary	Eugenio Inchausti
Administrative Secretary	Florencia Romano
Coordinating Secretary	María Luz Alonso

See also

• List of current Argentine deputies
• Argentine Senate
• Politics of Argentina
• List of legislatures by country

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Parliaments of Argentina.

• Chamber of Deputies Argentina - Official Site

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