Census data put pressure on the Chamber for division of vacancies – 07/15/2023 – Power

The new population estimates for the states, released two weeks ago in the 2022 Census preview, should pressure the Chamber of Deputies to recalculate the division of the number of seats by state for the 2026 elections.

Projection carried out at the request of Sheet by Diap (Departamento Intersindical de Assessoria Parlamentar) points to changes in the current distribution of the 513 seats in the Chamber, with vacancies lost in seven states and gains in another seven.

Rio de Janeiro would lead the loss of seats in the Chamber, falling from 46 to 42 seats. Bahia, Rio Grande do Sul, Piauí and Paraíba would lose 2 places each. The states of Pernambuco and Alagoas would have 1 less seat in the Chamber.

On the other hand, the benches of Santa Catarina and Pará would grow, with 4 more vacancies for each state. Amazonas would gain 2 more seats, while Minas Gerais, Ceará, Goiás and Mato Grosso would have one more seat each. The other states and the Federal District would maintain the same number of vacancies.

The Federal Constitution determines that representation in the Chamber of Deputies must be proportional to the population of each state. But the constituents defined a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 70 deputies per unit of the federation.

The number of seats per state, however, has not changed since December 1993, the year in which the last redesign of vacancies in the Chamber took place after the approval of a complementary law. There was no update of the size of the benches based on data from the 2000 and 2010 Censuses.

In 2013, the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) even issued a resolution on the redistribution of vacancies by state in the Chamber based on the previous Census, carried out in 2010.

The following year, however, the STF (Federal Supreme Court) declared that the resolution was unconstitutional and defined that it would be up to the Chamber itself to make this division by means of a complementary law, which never happened.

“To interfere with regional issues always has a very strong political aspect. Whoever wins will put pressure to change the calculation, who loses will work to keep everything as it is”, evaluates Neuriberg Dias, political analyst and advisor at Diap.

In the wake of data from the new Census, Federal Deputy Rafael Pezenti (MDB-SC) filed a supplementary bill in recent days that changes the representation of states and the Federal District in the Chamber of Deputies from the legislature that begins in February 2027.

The proposal also foresees a permanent mechanism for the reconfiguration of the benches, so that a new complementary bill would become unnecessary for each Census.

Pezenti justifies the proposal by arguing that there is an underrepresentation in the Federal Chamber of the states whose population has grown the most in the last 30 years and that it is necessary to correct the distortions.

The state of Santa Catarina, for example, has a population of 7.7 million inhabitants according to the 2022 Census and only 16 federal deputies. The size of the bench is smaller than that of states with a smaller population, as is the case of Maranhão, which has 6.8 million residents and 18 federal deputies.

“I just want to do justice and ensure that the states have a more equal representation. The Santa Catarina vote cannot be worth less than that of voters from other states”, argues Pezenti, remembering that the smaller number of deputies also represents less resources in amendments .

He recognizes that the issue is thorny because it directly interferes with the interests of parliamentarians who should seek re-election in 2026. But he says he is optimistic and points out that those who lose out in the recalculation are a minority: the seven states that would lose vacancies have 172 deputies.

The states whose benches would grow add up to 141 votes and another 200 are from federation units that would not see changes in size. The bill needs a simple majority to pass.

The expectation, however, is of strong opposition from the benches of the states that would have a reduction, as in Rio de Janeiro, Bahia and Pernambuco.

Coordinator of the federal bench in Rio de Janeiro, federal deputy Áureo Ribeiro (Solidariedade) questions the reliability of the 2022 Census data and says he sees difficulties in redistributing vacancies: “It is a very sensitive topic, it would be a very difficult consensus to build” .

Federal deputy Carlos Veras (PT), one of the coordinators of the Pernambuco bench, says he does not believe in the possibility of changing the composition by state. “The last modification is from 1993, which reveals the difficulty of the issue being appreciated in the Chamber of Deputies.”

Another possible obstacle to putting the project on the agenda could be the mayor himself, Arthur Lira (PP). This is because the state of Alagoas would be one of those affected by the recalculation: the state bench would be reduced from 9 to 8 federal deputies.

Deputy Rafael Pezenti says he believes that Lira will not put his own interests ahead of the will of the plenary, if a majority favorable to the project is built.

The Santa Catarina bench has already begun to discuss strategies to convince party leaders and try to put the project on the return of the parliamentary recess.

In the opinion of political scientist Cláudio André de Souza, professor at Unilab (Universidade da Integração Internacional da Lusofonia Afro-Brasileira), Congress should not postpone the recalculation of vacancies: “The greater the gap, the more abrupt a possible change in the future will be” .

If the proposal is approved, there will be an increase in the electoral quotient and greater competition in 2026 in states where the number of seats is reduced. With that, says Souza, the tendency is for small parties to be more difficult in the legislative disputes of these states, which can boost new party federations.

The change also tends to give greater strength to the benches of states with a more conservative profile, such as Santa Catarina, Mato Grosso and Goiás. On the other hand, there would be a loss of six deputies in the northeastern group, which in recent legislatures has been more aligned with leftist governments.

A possible change in the size of federal benches in the states would also be reflected in the Legislative Assemblies. The number of vacancies follows the same proportion of the Chamber of Deputies, but with a minimum of 24 and a maximum of 94 state deputies.