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The 'Chamber of Deputies' is the lower house of the National Congress, Argentina's parliament. This Chamber holds exclusive rights to create taxes, to draft troops, and to accuse the President, the ministers and the members of the Supreme Court before the Senate.

Contents

Composition

Controversy

2005 election

References

External link

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 Federal Capital) using proportional representation, D'Hondt formula with a 3% of the district registered voters threshold, and the following distribution:

★ Buenos Aires Province: 70 deputies

★ Capital Federal: 25 deputies

★ Catamarca Province: 5 deputies

★ Chaco Province: 7 deputies

★ Chubut Province: 5 deputies

★ Córdoba Province: 18 deputies

★ Corrientes Province: 7 deputies

★ Entre Ríos Province: 9 deputies

★ Formosa Province: 5 deputies

★ Jujuy Province: 6 deputies

★ La Pampa Province: 5 deputies

★ La Rioja Province: 5 deputies

★ Mendoza Province: 10 deputies

★ Misiones Province: 7 deputies

★ Neuquén Province: 5 deputies

★ Río Negro Province: 5 deputies

★ Salta Province: 7 deputies

★ San Juan Province: 6 deputies

★ San Luis Province: 5 deputies

★ Santa Cruz Province: 5 deputies

★ Santa Fe Province: 19 deputies

★ Santiago del Estero Province: 7 deputies

★ Tucumán Province: 9 deputies

★ Tierra del Fuego Province: 5 deputies

Controversy

The distribution of the Chamber of Deputies is regulated since 1983 by Law 22.847, also called ''Ley Bignone'' ("Bignone Law"). This law establishes that initially each province shall have 1 deputy per 161.000 inhabitants, with standard rounding. After this is calculated, each province is granted 3 deputies more. If it happens that a province has less than 5 deputies, the number of deputies for that province is increased to reach that minimum.
The main problem today is that the distribution has not been changed sinced 1983, using the 1980 population census, though there have been two other two since then (1991 and 2001, the next being in 2011). So, this distribution doesn't reflect Argentina's population proportion.^[1]

2005 election

See List of current Argentine Deputies

References

1. http://www.mininterior.gov.ar/reformapolitica/desproporcionalidad.doc

External link

★ Cámara de Diputados de la Nación