Politics: Not much action on the legislative front by the end of the period
Despite considerable time and effort expended in the halls of the legislature and in the mass media, including in the morning presidential press conferences, to giving the impression that the Fourth Transformation was advancing on the legislative front, the reality appears less spectacular. For the legislative period that ran from February 1 to April 30, President Claudia Sheinbaum and the 4T legislators insisted on the urgent need to approve secondary legislation further defining and putting teeth into the constitutional reforms inherited from AMLO’s administration, along with new bills on issues such as electoral nepotism and improvements in housing and labor benefits for state workers. But when the dust settled, only three bills were actually approved. These were on strengthening national sovereignty (which was long on political criteria and short on concrete measures), administrative simplification and digitalization, conservation (still to be approved by the Senate), and the protection of native corn (without the necessary accompanying secondary legislation). Some bills, such as the draft law on telecommunications and broadcasting, are still under discussion.
Among the bills that Sheinbaum still has not sent to Congress are the National Guard Law, the Criminal Procedures Code, the Federal Law against Organized Crime, the Amparo Law, the Organic Law of the Federal Judicial Branch, the “Faceless Judges” Law, the Federal Law for the Prevention and Identification of Operations with Resources of Illicit Origin, the General Law on Social Development, the Customs Law, the Federal Law on Contentious Administrative Procedures, the General Healthcare Law (the objective of which is to bring it into line with the constitutional reform that prohibits the use of vapes), and the Railway Law (which only lacks Senate approval).
The reason for the legislative backlog and lack of progress are the internal disputes within the 4T camp and the resistance to some of the measures from different sectors in society. To remedy the situation, a special legislative period is being called for June, during which 15 bills will be sent to Congress. However, it remains up in the air as to whether, following the June 1 judicial elections, the panorama will be more favorable for Sheinbaum to shore up her legislative agenda.
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