Martina Jaureguy 
By Martina Jaureguy and Juan Décima
Lawmakers from different parties rejected President Javier Milei’s request for extraordinary legislative powers in the massive state reform proposal known as the “omnibus bill” that was sent to Congress on Wednesday. While some agree with the content of the bill, its potential for success is still unclear.
“Milei wants to shut Congress down,” Bregman, from the left-wing Frente de Izquierda de los Trabajadores-Unidad, told the Herald.
The bill proposes declaring a public emergency until the end of 2025, which would allow the Executive branch to legislate on certain matters without having to go through Congress. Within its 664 articles, there is also the sweeping privatization of public companies, the elimination of primary elections, and five-year prison sentences for those who organize protests. The bill comes on the heels of a mega-decree issued by Milei last week, which modified and annulled hundreds of laws.
“He is looking to modify the entire legal and constitutional Argentine system,” Bregman said, describing the moves as “illegal and unconstitutional.”
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Per the president’s summons, Congress has been in extraordinary sessions since Tuesday, but ruling coalition La Libertad Avanza (LLA) still hasn’t set up the necessary commissions to address the issues on the table. That includes a special commission with members of the lower and upper houses that have to analyze the decree.
Bregman and Silvia Lospennato, a national deputy from Juntos por el Cambio (JxC) — a coalition fragmented between those who support Milei and those who don’t — confirmed to the Herald that LLA has yet to assign lawmakers their commissions. Fellow JxC deputy Tetaz said that the bill will probably be analyzed in joint commission sessions, given its size.
“I think all of the reforms are very good in general terms,” Martín Tetaz, from JxC member party Unión Cívica Radical, told the Herald. “However, we don’t agree with giving extraordinary powers to this president or any other.” He added he disagrees with the proposed increase in export duties and eliminating the pensions formula: “Those are our limits.”
Tetaz added he agrees with regulating social protest, but that he will contest the article in the bill that establishes permits for gatherings of three people or more in public spaces, in an attempt to dissuade rallies and demonstrations.
Bregman, on the other hand, expressed great worry over that article. “They want to attack the people’s life conditions without anyone being able to protest,” she said, adding that regulations like these “are only comparable to those from the last dictatorship.”
“Only someone with a wish to be king can expect for a bill like this to be passed,” she added.
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What now?
It is still unclear whether the bill will be successful or not.
LLA, which only has 38 out of 257 deputies in the Lower Chamber, will have to negotiate with the other coalitions in order to get the necessary 129 votes to pass the bill.
Deputies from Unión por la Patria (UxP), the former ruling coalition, have rejected the bill in a communiqué released along with UxP senators on Wednesday. They are the biggest coalition in Congress, with 102 deputies and 33 senators.
The UxP lawmakers said Milei’s decree “clearly attacks Congress’ mandate and violates the division of powers” while the omnibus bill “ratifies the president’s intent to get extraordinary powers which are absolutely unconstitutional.”
Most of the 37 deputies from the PRO party, which is part of the JxC coalition, will likely support it. However, other JxC members like those from the Unión Cívica Radical, may not.
Negotiations will also be key in the Senate, where LLA only has 8 out of 72 seats.
While other presidents have declared a state of emergency for particular issues (former President Alberto Fernández declared a sanitary emergency during the pandemic), the scale of what Milei is requesting is without precedent, considering the vast number of areas over which he intends to make decisions without Congressional oversight.
“I was surprised to see ‘defense’ included in the list, considering that Argentina has no looming conflicts with anyone right now,” political scientist Lara Goyburu told the Herald. She added that, if approved, the law would give Milei an amount of political power “no democratic government has ever had since the establishment of the Argentine constitution in 1853.”
“The law is re-foundational in spirit. An attempt to completely overhaul the way the Argentine state and society operate. This isn’t new. As a candidate, Milei expressed many times that he thought everything was wrong with how things worked in Argentina.”
“This is taking the Constitution to its limits,” she said, adding that it is also troubling to see the current state of the opposition and political system, calling them “lethargic.”
“If this is approved, there is no reason for Congress to exist.”
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