The reforms that happened in fast track or when Mexicans were on vacation

On Sunday, April 17, Mexicans will wake up on their last day of vacation for Easter, millions of them will take to the roads and highways, while the Chamber of Deputies will hold the vote on the Electric Reform sent by the President of the Republic in an attempt to recover the rectory of the market of electricity.

The draft Constitutional Reform was sent since the end of 2021 and although it was thought that Morena would try to bring it before the end of the year, it was finally decided to postpone it on the grounds of launching a series of public forums to reach consensus with other political forces.

The initiative was finally unfrozen at the end of March 2022 by Morena's leaders in San Lázaro and although the content of the opinion was not yet known, the United Energy and Constitutional Points commissions scheduled sessions to process it and bring it to the plenary session. So next Resurrection Sunday could be decisive for the future of the Mexican Electricity System, should it be approved at this legislative stage.

It is not strange for Mexicans to learn a day later that the Deputies or Senators passed laws or reforms in the early morning sessions in “fast track”, or that these changes to the legal framework occurred in the middle of vacation periods or even in alternate venues of the Congress of the Union.

In November 2019, the Chamber of Deputies met at an alternate headquarters in Santa Fe, Mexico City, where it unreservedly approved the 2020 Federation Expenditure Budget. In that early morning on the 22nd, Morena and her allies endorsed with 302 votes in favor a government expenditure of more than 6 billion pesos by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, without the 65 deputies against, and one abstention, achieving make at least one change, as all reservations were discarded.

Only on the first day of the new Federal Legislature, the deputies passed the new Impeachment Law without an opinion, with the dispensation of all parliamentary procedures and with “urgent and obvious resolution”.

In a session that lasted until the early hours, the newly released legislators from Morena, PVEM and PT were able to approve the initiative to issue a new Federal Law on Impeachment and Declaration of Provenance, which was turned to the Senate.

For the other political parties, it was a revenge of the ruling party after the lawlessness and detention of the governor of Tamaulipas, Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, who was discouraged by the lower house in its previous legislature, was not achieved.

On March 2, 2021, Congress approved amendments to the Electricity Industry Act with which the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), headed by Manuel Bartlett, could have priority in the order of dispatch to the National Electricity System without the obligation to generate it completely through clean sources according to 2013 standards.

The panistas complained about the move to quickly approve these reforms: “In a dawn, Morena and her allies are calling a session today to approve counter-reform of #LeyDeLaIndustriaEléctrica. Like this. On the knees. Violating procedures. They will give yes to expensive birth and dirty energy. They're employees of the president. And they assume it in front of the nation,” the albiazules complained.

These constitutional changes were challenged by opposition senators until the matter reached the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) and on April 7, 2022, four out of 11 ministers decided not to declare them unconstitutional.

On December 15, 2017, the Senate passed the Internal Security Act, without taking into consideration civil society organizations or national and international human rights bodies that submitted comments and requested adjustments.

In that term, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was still the first political force in the country and was governed by Enrique Peña Nieto. After the Decree was published on December 21, 2017, “14 constitutional disputes, 9 unconstitutional actions and 700 claims for amparo” were filed, making it one of the most challenging laws in the history of Mexico.

Called the mother of all reforms, this initiative by President Enrique Peña Nieto was sent in August 2013 and with it opened the possibility for foreign companies to participate in oil rounds for field exploration and oil extraction, an activity that for decades had been the exclusive faculty of Petroleos Mexicans (Pemex).

It was until December 10 that the Senate of the Republic began its discussion in plenary where the debate lasted for more than 20 hours until it was finally approved with 95 votes in favor and 28 against.

On December 11, the minutes passed to the Chamber of Deputies, and in an alternate hall in San Lázaro, the Political Coordination Board (Jucopo) dispensed the formalities as an urgent and obvious resolution and thus took it to the plenary for voting.

After intense debate, shouting and jerking in San Lazarus, the official party won its approval with 354 votes in favor and 134 against, without any of the reservations presented by the opposition prospered.

Thus, Mexicans woke up on December 12, 2013 with the morning to Our Lady of Guadalupe and an Energy Reform that opened the oil market to private investment.

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