Politics: Squaring off in decisive Legislature

MEXICO - Report 07 Sep 2020 by Guillermo Valdes and Francisco González

The third and last year of the federal legislature elected along with President López Obrador in 2018 holds special importance for AMLO’s governing project. Given the risk that the government’s commanding majority in the Chamber of Deputies may not survive the June 6 midterms, he is looking to lock in remaining major legal changes required of his Fourth Transformation. He must pass those constitutional reforms and related implementing laws either in this penultimate session that got underway September 1, or at the very latest during this legislature’s last ordinary session starting in February. The president even explicitly set a December 1 deadline for such reforms in his State of the Nation address last week.

However, we can expect the 2021 federal budget to be the most controversial point in the congressional debates at least up until each chambers’ respective deadlines for signing off on the revenue and spending laws between late October and mid November. As a side note to the budget talks, it is very likely that we will see the administration engaging in intense negotiations with state governors struggling with revenue shortfalls and the heightened spending demands imposed by the pandemic that the federal government has avoided addressing.

But we can expect equally intense wrangling over the administration’s very extensive reform and policy agendas in the coming months. While neither of the two main opposition parties (PAN and PRI) are in a position to block most of that legislative onslaught much less get their agenda points adopted in an AMLO dominated lower chamber, their congressional proposals could provide a preview of their 2021 campaign issues.

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