On the eve of the vote on the bill from 513 to 531, senators tell votes, state that the house is divided and consider the result of the score.
Both the project rapporteur, Senator Marcelo Castro (MDB-PI) and Senate President, (-AP), spent the last days calling colleagues to ask for support for the project, whose impact on the first year is estimated at almost $ 65 million.
Senators favorable to the increase of vacancies in the House claim to have achieved the necessary 41 votes, out of a total of 81, to approve the proposal in the Senate plenary on Wednesday (25), but admit that the account is tight.
In addition to the melee made by cardinals of the house, the remote vote facilitates approval by ensuring a higher quorum during the session. With the parties of St. John, senators were released to all this week’s votes.
The bill was included in the Senate agenda last week for face-to-face vote, but was postponed for lack of votes. Castro came to that, by the informal accounts of that day, with the emptied Congress, only about 30 senators would vote in favor.
Research shows that the increase; Only 20% are in favor.
According to reports, Alcolumbre promised the president of, (-PB), if. The senator told leaders that the matter was concerned with the House and, therefore, should be decided by them – to the Senate only to endorse what was done.
Already Castro has argued that a possible redistribution of the number of federal deputies throughout the country to be made by the (Superior Electoral Court) and maintaining the current amount of chairs would eventually be harmful to the Northeast. Of the 7 states that would lose vacancies, 5 are from the region, including Piauí, from Castro.
“I want this Wednesday to vote and enjoy the bill that came from the House. We are now doing what we should have done in 1993. Of course I can’t prevent someone from presenting a substitute text [alternativo]”Castro told the report on Tuesday.
The House of Representatives estimates at R $ 64.6 million per year the increase in vacancies, including wages, benefits and structure for 18 new parliamentarians.
The House’s Finance Department distributed a note to inform that, if approved, the project “will not matter the need for any addition to the current budget of this House, which will continue to rigorously respect the spending ceiling”.
The rapporteur has also countered the argument that there will be increased spending on parliamentary amendments because the value is defined in the budget from the fixed percentage of net current revenue.
Alcolumbre told senators that the bill will be voted this week, regardless of the outcome. In the same line, Castro promises to defend the vote on Wednesday so that Congress is not once again accused of omission by the judiciary.
The redistribution of vacancies has been required by the (Supreme Court) from a request from Pará to prevent states whose population has grown in recent years from being underrected. If the readjustment is not approved by June 30, the TSE itself will do so.
Instead of relocating the 513 chairs between the states and the Federal District, the House decided to create 18 more, contemplating those who had a population increase according to the (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).
If the change is approved, new deputies are earned the states of Pará and Santa Catarina (4 each), Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Norte (2 each), Goiás, Ceará, Paraná and Minas Gerais (1 each).
If the number of 513 federal deputies is maintained, parliamentarians lose the benches of Rio de Janeiro (4), Bahia (2), Paraíba (2), Piauí (2), Rio Grande do Sul (2), Alagoas (1) and Pernambuco (1).
One of the parliamentarians contrary to the increase, Senator Eduardo Girão (Novo-CE) claims to have heard from colleagues the possibility of voting on a text that makes only a new division between federative units, without increasing vacancies.
In this scenario, he says, the House of Representatives could reverse the change made by the senators – with the entire political burden of increasing the number of deputies.
“They have no votes to approve the bill, the Senate will reject. The population is following this subject closely. Even deputies who voted in favor would vote against today,” he says.
