Argentine Chamber Of Deputies

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.

Chamber of Deputies of the Nation Cámara de Diputados de la Nación
2023–2025 period
Type
Type	Lower house of the National Congress of Argentina
Term limits	None
Leadership
President	Martín Menem, LLA since 10 December 2023
1st Vice President	Cecilia Moreau, UP since 10 December 2023
First Minority Leader	Germán Martínez, UP since 1 February 2022
Second Minority Leader	Cristian Ritondo, PRO–JxC since 10 December 2019
Structure
Seats	257 (List)
Political groups	Government (41)   LLA (38) Allies (37)   PRO (37)   MID (3) Independent (75)   UCR (34)   HCF (22)   IF (8)   Independence (3)   PSC (2)   PyT (2)   CREO (1)   BsAs Libre (2)   MPN (1) Opposition (104)   UP (99)   FIT-U (5)
Length of term	4 years
Elections
Voting system	Party-list proportional representation D'Hondt method
Last election	22 October 2023 (130 seats)
Next election	19 October 2025
Meeting place
Chamber of Deputies, Congress Palace, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Website
hcdn.gob.ar

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 Senate. 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 (Spanish: Presidente de la Cámara), who is deputized by three vice presidents. All of them are elected by the chamber itself.

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

By political groups

127 of the current members of the Chamber of Deputies for the 2023–2025 period were elected in 2021, while the remaining 130 were elected in 2023 legislative election. The governing La Libertad Avanza alliance, to which President Javier Milei belongs, is the fourth-largest parliamentary bloc with 33 deputies, while the main opposition, Union for the Homeland, holds the first minority with 100 deputies.

Individuals elected to congress must 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. (Art. 48 of the Argentine Constitution).

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.

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 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.

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. The officeholders for this post since 1983 have been:

President	Party		Term start	Term end	Province
Juan Carlos Pugliese		UCR	29 November 1983	3 April 1989	Buenos Aires Province
Leopoldo Moreau		UCR	26 April 1989	6 July 1989	Buenos Aires Province
Alberto Pierri		PJ	6 July 1989	1 December 1999	Buenos Aires Province
Rafael Pascual		UCR	1 December 1999	5 December 2001	City of Buenos Aires
Eduardo Camaño		PJ	5 December 2001	6 December 2005	Buenos Aires Province
Alberto Balestrini		PJ–FPV	6 December 2005	12 December 2007	Buenos Aires Province
Eduardo Fellner		PJ–FPV	12 December 2007	6 December 2011	Jujuy
Julián Domínguez		PJ–FPV	6 December 2011	4 December 2015	Buenos Aires Province
Emilio Monzó		PRO–C	4 December 2015	10 December 2019	Buenos Aires Province
Sergio Massa		FDT	10 December 2019	2 August 2022	Buenos Aires Province
Cecilia Moreau		FDT/UP	2 August 2022	7 December 2023	Buenos Aires Province
Martín Menem		LLA	7 December 2023	Incumbent	La Rioja (Argentina)

Leadership positions include:

Title	Officeholder	Party	Province
Chamber President	Martín Menem	La Libertad Avanza	La Rioja
First Vice President	Cecilia Moreau	Union for the Homeland	Buenos Aires
Second Vice President	Julio Cobos	Radical Civic Union	Mendoza
Third Vice President	Vacant	—
Parliamentary Secretary	Tomás Ise Figueroa	—
Administrative Secretary	Laura Emilia Oriolo	—
Coordinating Secretary		—

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