The Chamber of Deputies (), officially the Honorable Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Nation, is the lower house of the Argentine National Congress (). It is made up of 257 national deputies who are elected in multi-member constituencies corresponding with the territories of the 23 provinces of Argentina (plus the Federal Capital) by party list proportional representation. Elections to the Chamber are held every two years, so that half of its members are up in each election, making it a rare example of staggered elections used in a lower house.

The Constitution of Argentina lays out certain attributions that are unique to the Chamber of Deputies. The Chamber holds exclusive rights to levy taxes; to draft troops; and to accuse the president, cabinet ministers, and members of the Supreme Court before the Chamber of Senators. Additionally, the Chamber of Deputies receives for consideration bills presented by popular initiative.

The Chamber of Deputies is presided over by the president of the Chamber (), who is deputized by three vice presidents. All of them are elected by the chamber itself.

Current 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 Autonomous City of Buenos Aires), using proportional representation (list PR), D'Hondt formula, with a 3% of the district-registered voters threshold, and the following distribution:

By province Province Deputies Population (2010) Buenos Aires City 25 2,890,151 Buenos Aires 70 15,625,084 Catamarca 5 367,828 Chaco 7 1,053,466 Chubut 5 506,668 Córdoba 18 3,304,825 Corrientes 7 993,338 Entre Ríos 9 1,236,300 Formosa 5 527,895 Jujuy 6 672,260 La Pampa 5 316,940 La Rioja 5 331,847 Mendoza 10 1,741,610 Misiones 7 1,097,829 Neuquén 5 550,334 Río Negro 5 633,374 Salta 7 1,215,207 San Juan 6 680,427 San Luis 5 431,588 Santa Cruz 5 272,524 Santa Fe 19 3,200,736 Santiago del Estero 7 896,461 Tierra del Fuego 5 126,190 Tucumán 9 1,448,200

By political groups

127 of the current members of the Chamber of Deputies for the 2025-2027 period were elected in 2025, while the remaining 130 were elected in 2023. The governing party La Libertad Avanza, to which President Javier Milei belongs, is the largest parliamentary bloc, with 95 deputies, while the main opposition, Homeland Force, holds 93 deputies.

Bloc Leader La Libertad Avanza (95) Gabriel Bornoroni Homeland Force (93) Germán Martínez United Provinces (18) Gisela Scaglia PRO (12) Cristian Ritondo Federal Innovation (7) Alberto Arrúa Radical Civic Union (6) Pamela Verasay Workers' Left Front – Unity (4) Myriam Bregman Elijo Catamarca (3) Sebastián Nóblega Independencia (3) Gladys Medina País Federal (3) Claudio Álvarez Civic Coalition (2) Maximiliano Ferraro Encuentro Federal (2) Miguel Ángel Pichetto Integration and Development Movement (2) Oscar Zago Production and Labour (2) Nancy Picón Adelante Buenos Aires (1) Karina Banfi Defendamos Córdoba (1) Natalia de la Sota La Neuquinidad (1) Karina Maureira For Santa Cruz (1) José Luis Garrido Primero San Luis (1) Jorge Fernández Source: hcdn.gob.ar

Requirements Individuals elected to congress must be at least twenty five years old with at least four years of active citizenship. The elected individuals have to have been naturalized in the province in which they are being elected, or have at least two years of immediate residency in said province. (Art. 48 of the Argentine Constitution).

History The Chamber of Deputies was provided for in the Constitution of Argentina, ratified on May 1, 1853. Eligibility requisites are that members be at least twenty-five years old, and have been a resident of the province they represent for at least two years; as congressional seats are elected at-large, members nominally represent their province, rather than a district.

Otherwise patterned after Article One of the United States Constitution per legal scholar Juan Bautista Alberdi's treatise, Bases de la Constitución Argentina, the chamber was originally apportioned in one seat per 33,000 inhabitants. The constitution made no provision for a national census, however, and because the Argentine population doubled every twenty years from 1870 to 1930 as a result of immigration (disproportionately benefiting Buenos Aires and the Pampas area provinces), censuses were conducted generationally, rather than every decade, until 1947.Indec: Historia de los censos

Apportionment controversy The distribution of the Chamber of Deputies is regulated since 1982 by Law 22.847, also called Ley Bignone, enacted by the last Argentine dictator, General Reynaldo Bignone, ahead of the 1983 general elections. This law established that, initially, each province shall have one deputy per 161,000 inhabitants, with standard rounding; after this is calculated, each province is granted three more deputies. If a province has fewer than five deputies, the number of deputies for that province is increased to reach that minimum.

Controversially, apportionment remains based on the 1980 population census, and has not been modified since 1983; national censuses since then have been conducted in 1991, 2001, 2010, and 2022. The minimum of five seat per province allots the smaller ones a disproportionately large representation, as well. Accordingly, this distribution does not reflect Argentina's current population balance.

Presidents of the Chamber

The president of the Chamber is elected by a majority of the Chamber's members. Traditionally, the presidency is held by a member of the party or alliance of the national executive, though exceptions have occurred, such as in 2001, when the Peronist Eduardo Camaño was elected president of the Chamber during the presidency of the radical Fernando de la Rúa. The officeholders for this post since 1983 have been: President Party Term start Term end ProvinceJuan Carlos PuglieseUCR29 November 19833 April 1989Leopoldo MoreauUCR26 April 19896 July 1989Alberto PierriPJ6 July 19891 December 1999Rafael PascualUCR1 December 19995 December 2001Eduardo CamañoPJ5 December 20016 December 2005Alberto BalestriniPJ–FPV6 December 200512 December 2007Eduardo FellnerPJ–FPV12 December 20076 December 2011Julián DomínguezPJ–FPV6 December 20114 December 2015Emilio MonzóPRO–C4 December 201510 December 2019Sergio MassaFDT10 December 20192 August 2022Cecilia MoreauFDT/UP2 August 20227 December 2023Martín Menem LLA7 December 2023Incumbent

Current authorities Current leadership positions include: Title Officeholder Party ProvinceChamber PresidentMartín MenemLa Libertad AvanzaFirst Vice PresidentCecilia MoreauUnion for the HomelandSecond Vice PresidentJulio CobosRadical Civic UnionThird Vice PresidentVacantcolspan=2 Parliamentary Secretary Tomás Ise Figueroa colspan=2 Administrative Secretary Laura Emilia Oriolo colspan=2 Coordinating Secretary colspan=2

See also Argentine Senate Politics of Argentina List of legislatures by country

References

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