The constitutional reform on telecommunications is up in the air. After passing through the Chamber of Deputies without too many problems \u2013 the discussion in the Committee on Constitutional Matters and a lengthy plenary session proved to be enough -, its way to the Senate hasn\u2019t been so smooth. Senators will not only review the document in several Commissions (Constitutional Matters, Legislative Studies, Radio and Television, and Communications and Transport), but will also consult different specialists and officers to improve this reform. Regardless whether they manage to \u201crefine\u201d the document from its possible faults, a certain modus operandi appears to develop in both chambers.<\/p>\n
Despite the fact that PRI has a similar proportionality in both Congress chambers (42%), trademarks of the party\u2019s leadership and the nature of opposition groups \u2013 particularly PAN \u2013 make the dynamics in the Chamber of Deputies different than the one in the Senate.\u00a0 Firstly, the quality and effectiveness of leadership in the House of Representatives have been extraordinarily efficient in driving the Presidential agenda forward, as opposed to what\u2019s happening at the Senate. Part of the reason for this is pure political ability. However, internal dynamics of the opposition parties have also played an important role. On the one hand, factions allied with PAN leader and proponent of the Pact for Mexico, Gustavo Madero, have a majority within PAN Deputies. On the other hand, PAN Senators are less identified with their national leader \u2013 and more with the former President, Felipe Calder\u00f3n \u2013 and are \u201cless enthusiastic\u201d with the Pact that the current head of the Executive, Enrique Pe\u00f1a, promoted. A similar thing is happening at PRD, though not on the same extent. This way, the Senate has become a sort of \u201copposition\u2019s last bastion\u201d in the face of what it\u2019s feared may become a steamroller from the Presidency. With this in mind, even though the negotiating skills of deputy Manlio Fabio Beltrones are well known, Senator Emilio Gamboa has a greater challenge as coordinator of the PRI party whip when the time comes to negotiate with PAN and PRD.<\/p>\n
Since January the president of the Senate, Ernesto Cordero, warned that structural reforms should be \u201ccalmly\u201d analyzed. On the other hand, in a meeting of the PAN National Council held in March, Madero stated: \u201cDon\u2019t be tricked into thinking that if the [telecommunications] reform is approved the CEN [PAN\u2019s National Executive Committee] or Madero will be strengthened, or if nothing gets approved then you\u2019ve beaten CEN or Madero\u201d. Changes to the telecommunications reform that happen in the Senate may have the eagerness to add useful technicalities when the time to apply it comes. It may also hold the legitimate political dynamics of an opposition pretending to be responsible as a counterweight to Pe\u00f1a Nieto\u2019s administration. This would imply not blocking the necessary legislative changed needed in Mexico just for the sake of it, but would neither mean to sign an almost-blank check to the party in power. It could also entail an extraordinary opportunity for companies affected by this law to \u201ccorrect\u201d its content under the protection of the legislator\u2019s disagreement. In the end, the specific evaluation of the telecommunications reform will allow to determine whether it was a process that improved the initiative or, on the contrary, neutralized it. In other words, to determine if it was a legitimate counterweight process or a showdown between parties and particular interests.<\/p>\n
Yet the truth is that disagreements between Senate and the Chamber of Deputies do not cease and telecommunications are not the only issue. On April 16, Deputies, through the Political Coordination Board, decided not to discuss a draft already approved by Senators regarding Constitutional reforms on financial discipline of states and municipalities. Deputies justified the refusal by mentioning the lack of Senate faculties to be a chamber of origin on economic and business matters. However, conflicts within both Houses are a reality to be reckoned and their impact, both in the Pact for Mexico\u2019s reform ambitions as well as relations between parties, carries the risk of going back to the nonsense of legislating more of what\u2019s (less) possible and less of what\u2019s (necessarily) needed.<\/p>\n
CIDAC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The constitutional reform on telecommunications is up in the air. After
\npassing through the Chamber of Deputies without too many problems \u2013 the
\ndiscussion in the Committee on Constitutional Matters and a lengthy
\nplenary session proved to be enough -, its way to the Senate hasn\u2019t been
\n so smooth. Senators will not only review the document in several
\nCommissions (Constitutional Matters, Legislative Studies, Radio and
\nTelevision, and Communications and Transport), but will also consult
\ndifferent specialists and officers to improve this reform. Regardless
\nwhether they manage to \u201crefine\u201d the document from its possible faults, a
\n certain modus operandi appears to develop in both chambers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-3126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-publications","category-weekly-political-analysis","tag-political-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3126"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4624,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126\/revisions\/4624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}