Bipartisan pair files House resolution warning against Mexico's constitutional reforms

A bipartisan House pair is raising alarm over Mexico’s proposed constitutional reforms, which they say threaten to disrupt the world’s largest country-to-country trade relationship.

Reps. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) and María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) introduced a resolution on Tuesday warning of the “long-term negative impact on Mexico’s democratic institutions, separation of powers, judicial independence and transparency, and security, while undermining its electoral system, National Guard, and oversight agencies.”

The reform package, due to be voted on by Mexico’s Senate late Tuesday or early Wednesday, consists of a host of constitutional changes to the judiciary, independent agencies and security agencies.

“The reforms proposed by the current government threaten to take Mexico back to the days of one party rule. Mexico is an important ally and partner of the United States — we must remain committed to ensuring the independence of the Mexican judiciary from populist attacks," Salazar said in a statement.

Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the driving force behind the reform package, has bristled at any criticism of it, particularly coming from abroad.

“We are friends with Mexico. The U.S. has to have a good working relationship, that means having an honest relationship,” Stanton told The Hill.

“Congress has serious concerns about these proposed reforms that would send the relationship in the wrong direction.”

The reforms — and the process to ram them through — have shaken Mexico’s economy as President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum prepares to take over on Oct. 1.

The peso has slumped about 20 percent against the dollar since June, when López Obrador’s Morena party won a massive landslide, electing Sheinbaum and a near-constitutional supermajority for Morena in both chambers of Congress.

López Obrador and Sheinbaum have said those election results — regardless of immediate economic consequences — are a mandate to reform the constitution.

“[López Obrador] started with Plan A, which was to try to pass a constitutional — what he called Plan A — was pass a constitutional amendment to gut INE, the National Electoral Institute. When he didn't get the numbers for that, he went to Plan B, which was legislation that sought to gut INE so he could control the ballot box in advance of the election,” said Amrit Singh, a Stanford Law professor who edited a May report on the constitutional reform proposals.

“When the Supreme Court found that that legislative procedure to be unconstitutional, he announced a while ago that Plan C was getting a supermajority in Congress, and, you know, voting for judges — that's what his plan has been from the get-go, is to eviscerate the checks and balances. And it's not surprising that he's now moving towards consolidating his agenda in the last month that he is still in office.”

A massive judiciary overhaul is at the heart of Plan C: The reform would make all federal judgeships into elected positions, a practice that is currently only in place in Bolivia and in some U.S. states, according to Singh.

“What we know from the U.S. system is that the election of judges has politicized judiciary, and that's exactly what's going to happen in Mexico, only the consequences will be far worse for Mexico, because it is particularly susceptible to the corrupt influence of the organized crime,” said Singh.

But the reform package would also gut independent agencies, including the INE, the country’s transparency body, as well as its telecommunications and antitrust regulators.

Those changes are all but certain to have an effect on upcoming U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) negotiations, foreign investments and cross-border trade.

According to Stanton and Salazar’s resolution, U.S. companies directly invested $130.3 billion in Mexico in 2022, the two countries traded $750 billion worth of goods in 2023 and approximately 5 million U.S. jobs depend on trade with Mexico.

“As a border state, Arizona benefits in so many ways from our close relationship with Mexico. However, I’m deeply concerned that the proposed constitutional reforms that will jeopardize this shared economic and security interest — particularly commitments made in the USMCA and efforts to counter cross-border crime,” said Stanton.

“Our bipartisan resolution respectfully calls on our Mexican counterparts to weigh these concerns as they move forward.”

But the reform process seems to be full steam ahead.

Last week, the lower Chamber of Deputies approved the reform with the necessary two-thirds majority for constitutional amendments, and the Senate is due to vote as early as late Tuesday night.

On paper, Morena and its allies are one vote short of the 86 votes needed to hit two-thirds in the 128-member Senate, but the government has been pressuring opposition senators to flip, including through the alleged use of threats of criminal prosecution.

Most observers believe Morena will obtain that final vote for Senate approval, but some — including the backers of the House resolution — hope to see López Obrador allies reconsider the most radical aspects of the reform.

“We're still hoping, especially because the consequences are so dire, how could we not be hoping that that some of these members of Congress understand how devastating this initiative is for Mexico, for Mexican people, for their constituents. And how could we not be hoping that somebody — that Morena doesn't get the numbers required to pass this legislation?” asked Singh.