Argentine Chamber of Deputies
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The Chamber of Deputies (Template:Langx), officially the Honorable Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Nation, is the lower house of the Argentine National Congress (Template:Langx). It is made up of 257 national deputies who are elected in multi-member constituencies corresponding with the territories of the 23 provinces of Argentina (plus the Federal Capital) by party list proportional representation. Elections to the Chamber are held every two years, so that half of its members are up in each election, making it a rare example of staggered elections used in a lower house.
The Constitution of Argentina lays out certain attributions that are unique to the Chamber of Deputies. 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 Chamber of Senators. Additionally, the Chamber of Deputies receives for consideration bills presented by popular initiative.
The Chamber of Deputies is presided over by the president of the Chamber (Template:Langx), who is deputized by three vice presidents. All of them are elected by the chamber itself.
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 (list PR), D'Hondt formula with a 3% of the district registered voters threshold, and the following distribution:
By province
| Province | Deputies | Population (2010) |
|---|---|---|
| Buenos Aires City | 25 | 2,890,151 |
| Buenos Aires | 70 | 15,625,084 |
| Catamarca | 5 | 367,828 |
| Chaco | 7 | 1,053,466 |
| Chubut | 5 | 506,668 |
| Córdoba | 18 | 3,304,825 |
| Corrientes | 7 | 993,338 |
| Entre Ríos | 9 | 1,236,300 |
| Formosa | 5 | 527,895 |
| Jujuy | 6 | 672,260 |
| La Pampa | 5 | 316,940 |
| La Rioja | 5 | 331,847 |
| Mendoza | 10 | 1,741,610 |
| Misiones | 7 | 1,097,829 |
| Neuquén | 5 | 550,334 |
| Río Negro | 5 | 633,374 |
| Salta | 7 | 1,215,207 |
| San Juan | 6 | 680,427 |
| San Luis | 5 | 431,588 |
| Santa Cruz | 5 | 272,524 |
| Santa Fe | 19 | 3,200,736 |
| Santiago del Estero | 7 | 896,461 |
| Tierra del Fuego | 5 | 126,190 |
| Tucumán | 9 | 1,448,200 |
By political groups
127 of the current members of the Chamber of Deputies for the 2025-2027 period were elected in the 2025, while the remaining 130 were elected in 2023 legislative election. The governing La Libertad Avanza alliance, to which President Javier Milei belongs, is the second largest parliamentary bloc with 99 deputies, while the main opposition, Union for the Homeland, holds the first minority with 104 deputies.
| Bloc | Leader | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| bgcolor="Template:Party color" | | Union for the Homeland (104) | Germán Martínez | |
| bgcolor="Template:Party color" | | La Libertad Avanza (99) | Gabriel Bornoroni | |
| bgcolor="Template:Party color" | | PRO (31) | Mauricio Macri | |
| United Provinces (12) | Juan Schiaretti | ||
| bgcolor="Template:Party color" | | Radical Civic Union (1) | Rodrigo de Loredo | |
| bgcolor="Template:Party color" | | Workers' Left Front – Unity (4) | Myriam Bregman | |
| Federal Innovation (3) | Pamela Calletti | ||
| bgcolor="Template:Party colour" | | Production and Labour (2) | Nancy Picón | |
| For Santa Cruz (1) | Sergio Acevedo | ||
| Source: hcdn.gob.ar Template:Small | |||
Requirements
Individuals elected to congress must be at least twenty five years old with at least four years of active citizenship. The elected individuals have to have been naturalized in the province in which they are being elected, or have at least two years of immediate residency in said province. (Art. 48 of 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 two years; as congressional seats are elected at-large, members nominally represent their province, rather than a district.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
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.<ref>Indec: Historia de los censos Template:Webarchive Template:In lang</ref>
Apportionment controversy
The distribution of the Chamber of Deputies is regulated since 1982 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, 2010, and 2022. 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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Presidents of the Chamber
Template:See also The president of the Chamber is elected by a majority of the Chamber's members. Traditionally, the presidency is held by a member of the party or alliance of the national executive, though exceptions have occurred, such as in 2001, when the Peronist Eduardo Camaño was elected president of the Chamber during the presidency of the radical Fernando de la Rúa.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The officeholders for this post since 1983 have been:
Current authorities
Current leadership positions include:
| Title | Officeholder | Party | Province |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chamber President | Martín Menem | La Libertad Avanza | Template:Flag |
| First Vice President | Cecilia Moreau | Union for the Homeland | Template:Flag |
| Second Vice President | Julio Cobos | Radical Civic Union | Template:Flag |
| Third Vice President | Vacant | colspan=2 Template:N/A | |
| Parliamentary Secretary | Tomás Ise Figueroa | colspan=2 Template:N/A | |
| Administrative Secretary | Laura Emilia Oriolo | colspan=2 Template:N/A | |
| Coordinating Secretary | colspan=2 Template:N/A |
See also
References
External links
Template:Argentine deputies, 2021–2023 Template:National lower houses Template:Argentine government Template:Authority control Template:Coord