Chamber closes deal for commissions in 1st arm wrestling match between base and opposition – 03/15/2023 – Power

After more than a month of negotiations, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), reached an agreement with party leaders for the installation of the permanent committees of the House this Wednesday (15).

The division shows the composition of base forces and opposition to the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government in the Chamber, with the PL, of former president Jair Bolsonaro, in key positions to play a tough game against the Planalto Palace.

The hammer was beaten in Lira’s meeting with leaders this Wednesday morning. Until shortly before the meeting began, parties were still articulated in the division of commissions. The PT, for example, tried to command the Human Rights Commission —which had remained with the PP.

At the meeting, it was agreed that the PT would retain Human Rights and, in exchange, he ceded the command of the Culture commission to the PP. In the end, Lula’s party will hold the presidencies of the Finance and Taxation, Human Rights and Labor committees, in addition to the Constitution and Justice, the most important in the Chamber.

On the other hand, the PL will have the presidency of the Commission for Financial Inspection and Control, Health, Public Security, Social Security and Childhood and Sports.

The party intends to place Bolsonarists at the head of the main committees. This is the case of federal deputy Bia Kicis (PL-DF), appointed by the PL to head the Inspection and Control —which has the power to summon all ministers of the Lula government to provide clarifications.

The leader of the PT, Zeca Dirceu (PR), said on Tuesday night (14) that he intended to fight until the last moment to prevent “crazy people” from assuming relevant positions in the permanent commissions.

“I appeal to no extremist nutcase to assume [a presidência de] commissions. It’s bad for Câmara, for Lira himself, for everyone,” she said.

The distribution of committee presidencies takes into account the size of the benches in the Chamber. The party with the largest number of deputies has the right of first choice, while the smallest party is last.

The rule favors the PL, which elected 99 federal deputies. Despite this, the acronym gave up commanding the main commission in exchange for an agreement, not yet closed, to appoint the rapporteur of the CMO (Mixed Budget Commission) in Lula’s first term. According to parliamentarians interviewed by the Sheetthis issue will be dealt with later.

One of the major impasses that needed to be resolved involved negotiations with União Brasil, the party that elected 59 deputies. Initially, for example, the party was interested in commanding the Finance and Taxation commission, which remained for the PT, and the Public Security commission, which will be commanded by the PL.

With the agreement, the party will lead the Mines and Energy, Education and National Integration.

The Environment commission, which was initially disputed by PT, MDB and PP ended up with MDB.

In agreement for the re-election of Lira, parties negotiated the creation of five new commissions in the Chamber at the beginning of the year. With the change, the House now has 30 collegiate members – and the objective was to give at least one presidency to each party that supported the Alagoas president’s campaign.

Lira endeavored to resolve the impasses of the commissions on Tuesday (14). Throughout the day, she met with small groups of party leaders and explained to interlocutors her absence from appointments that were foreseen in her agenda, stating that she was solving the situation of the commissions.

The president of the Chamber held meetings in his official residence with leaders Elmar Nascimento (União Brasil), Altineu Cortes (PL), Zeca Dirceu (PT) and Antônio Brito (PSD) to move forward with the agreement. A meeting with all the leaders, which was scheduled for the beginning of the afternoon, was canceled shortly before the scheduled time.

Leaders stated to Sheet, under reservation, that Lira’s decision to speed up the resolution of the deadlock over the commissions made the process be rushed. Therefore, in the early hours of Tuesday to Wednesday, the deputies exchanged several messages to define how the composition of each commission would be.

The choice of members of the main commissions is considered one of the main strategies for the base and the opposition to define the direction of the works.

In the Constitution and Justice Commission, for example, there are 64 seats to be divided between the parties. By the criterion of proportionality, the PL will have the greatest representation, with 13 deputies, followed by the federation of PT, PC do B and PV, with 10 seats.

In the collegiate, the benches of União Brasil and MDB will be fundamental for the government to form a majority – which makes it easier for the Executive to approve proposals.

Without government-aligned parties, the base will have only 25 votes in the CCJ. With them, the Planalto gets support from the majority of the collegiate, with 38 seats.

Therefore, one of the government’s strategies is to ask allied parties to nominate parliamentarians more closely linked to the Executive in the main committees.