Political survival and legislative reselection in Mexico’s chamber of deputies

ABSTRACT

This article presents an empirical investigation into the factors influencing the renomination of legislators by party leaders for their continued presence in Congress. We argue that legislators who have previously held influential positions within Congress, such as Committee President, have a successful track record of (co)sponsoring bills, and have built distinguished political careers, are more likely to be renominated in Congress. To test this theory, we employ an original dataset sourced from the Mexican 2018–2021 Chamber of Deputies, which comprises the inaugural group of Congress members allowed to seek reelection after a 90-year prohibition within the context of a transforming party system marked by the diminishing electoral attractiveness of traditional parties. Our findings carry significant implications for comprehending how party leaders recognise and reward legislators who effectively safeguard the party’s interests and uphold its reputation inside the halls of Congress.

KEYWORDS:

• Reselection
• Mexico
• party leadership
• legislative performance
• political careers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This prohibition, which began in 1932, was lifted by the constitutional reform of 2014 and has been effective since 2018. The new rules allow national legislators to seek consecutive re-election for up to four consecutive terms. The 2018–2021 legislative term was the first in which this prohibition was not applicable.

2 This information was gathered from the website https://www.diputados.gob.mx/sistema_legislativo.html

3 Out of the 44 committee chairs in the legislative term under study, 20 per cent have previous legislative experience at either the local or national level, while 27 per cent have executive experience, either through elected positions or appointments. These low figures reflect that only 45 per cent of the committees were chaired by traditional parties (PAN, PRI, and PRD), which have politicians with more extensive backgrounds, but they reduced their spaces due to the strong electoral emergence of MORENA in 2018.

4 A search was conducted in open sources for these letters with the objective of identifying the name of those legislators who did not send such letters, thereby self-excluding themselves from competing for reelection. Unfortunately, they could not be found, which prevented us from examining this subgroup of legislators.

5 These sources are: https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2016/11/01/venezuela-el-pais-donde-los-congresistas-tienen-el-salario-mas-bajo/. https://www.dw.com/es/estos-son-los-presidentes-y-legisladores-latinoamericanos-que-m%C3%A1s-ganan/a-44702706.On average, Mexican Deputies receive a monthly salary accompanied by additional financial support designated for their duties in Congress, district visits, and various voter-related activities. In addition to these regular earnings, they are entitled to special gratifications. When considering the cumulative income from all these sources, the total monthly remuneration amounts to $9,500.00 USD. https://www.bloomberglinea.com/2022/10/14/estos-son-los-salarios-de-los-legisladores-de-america-latina/

6 Out of Mexico’s 32 states, only the municipalities of two states did not hold elections to renew their mayorships. The rest of the Mexican states held elections, covering 77.8% of the 2,469 mayoral positions across the country. Additionally, except for Quintana Roo and Coahuila, all local Congresses underwent renewal, involving a total of 1,063 seats in local legislatures up for contention. These factors drew the attention of voters and led to an increase in voter turnout, reaching an impressive 52.67%. This marked a significant uptick compared to the midterm elections of 2015 (47.7%), 2009 (44.8%), and 2003 (41.3%). On the other hand, in these elections, the Senate was not renewed, thus there were no elections held in this realm.

7 By the legislative election of 2018, Bolívar Meza (2021) find that of the 280 nominated candidates by the coalition leaded by MORENA 40% were part of the traditional parties.

8 For members of Congress elected by SMD, the percentage of votes gained by the competitor in second place is subtracted from the percentage of votes obtained by the winning competitor out of one hundred minus one. As for members of Congress elected by PR, the number on the party list occupied by the parliamentarian is divided by the number of the last place on the list for which the party was elected.

9 Descriptive Statics of these variables and their relationships are presented in Appendix A: Descriptive Statics.

10 The number of observations in models 1, 2 and 3 are 494 because it was subtracted those legislators with no adscription to a political party.

11 In contexts where the leader of the party holds significant influence over candidate nominations, they may tolerate different preferences among their members in exchange for improved electoral prospects (Ascencio & Kerevel, 2021). However, it appears that when preferences not only differ but also lead to internal party divisions or confrontations, they can result in punishments from party leadership, such as non-nomination (Hazan & Rahat, 2010). Such was the case for legislators Porfirio Muñoz Ledo and Dulce María Sauri, both with extensive political careers (including multiple legislative, party, and executive positions at local and national levels, all of which were relevant). However, a direct and public confrontation with their respective party leadership, even in the case of Muñoz Ledo, including with the president, led to their exclusion from any candidacy for the 2021 election.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carlos Vázquez-Ferrel

Carlos Vázquez-Ferrel is a Research Professor at the Departamento de Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico. One of his research lines is comparative political institutions and his work has been published in Parliamentary Affairs, Revista de Ciencia Política y Perfiles Latinoamericanos. He is the author of the book La influencia legislativa de la oposición en las iniciativas presidenciales: el caso de los gobiernos de minoría en México, 1997–2012, for which he received the national award of the national institution of public administration in Mexico.