Tuesday, August 25, 2009
More Support for Shrinking the Legislature
The three parties in the Senate are showing support for cuts to the number of plurinominal senators, just as Josefina Vázquez has as well. With members from all three parties and in both houses showing interest in a change, it seems more likely. One of the things that bothers me about this is that it's a big, showy gesture that's easy for people to understand (as opposed to the disparate impact of tax reform), but it accomplishes nothing in and of itself. I can just imagine the self-congratulatory ads from the Senate or the Chamber of Deputies: "We cut the number of plurinominal legislators, bringing your Congress closer to you!" Or some such nonsense. But unless the reduction of 32 senators and 100 deputies makes tax and labor and penal reform more likely (and I don't see why it would), this would be at best a lateral move, not an improvement.
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2 comments:
The arguments for cutting plurinomials are -- por supeusto -- from the large parties. The whole point of plurinomials is to make sure the minority parties have some representation.
As to legislative efficiency, it's a red herring. If that were the concern, why stop at cutting a hundred plurinomials. Why not cut the legislature to two or three people?
Even the U.S. House of Representatives (which has the same number of reps it did during the McKinley Administration)is inefficient, and has only two parties (with overlapping agendas) to contend with.
Another reason for the plurinominals that you hear more in the states (but not so much in Mexico) is that it separates pols from narrow geographic agendas and allows parties to guarantee some space for their most talented figures. Mexico's got enough (especially in the lower house) to adequately address the second reason, and Mexico's pols don't ever seem to be too motivated by narrow issues appealing to narrow voting constituencies. (This because they don't have to worry about reelection, so their vital constituency is their party's leaders.) Still, I'm not crazy about this idea.
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