With unprecedented tie, vote on spending increase bill is postponed

An unusual situation marked the discussion, in the Senate, of the bill (PL) 4.059/2021, which changes the limit on government advertising spending in election years. The project had already been withdrawn from the agenda last week, at the request of the rapporteur himself, Eduardo Gomes (MDB-TO). It returned to today’s agenda (3) and ended up being withdrawn again and played a, as far as we know, unprecedented tie in the House’s voting panel. The voting score was 30 votes in favor and 30 votes against.

The project proposes a change in the calculation method to determine how much federal, state and municipal governments can spend on advertising in the first half of election years. If approved, the project would allow the federal government an increase of R$ 25 million in these expenses, later this year. Spending on institutional advertising linked to the covid-19 pandemic would not be subject to this limit.

After reading the report, some senators spoke out against it. It was pointed out that the project tries to change a rule for the first half of this year, just under two months from its end. After the speeches, a request for adjournment of discussion, presented by Jaques Wagner (PT-BA), was put to the vote.

A tie

Álvaro Dias (Podemos-PR) went so far as to say that he had never witnessed a tie on the panel in all his years in the Senate. “I don’t remember that tie, well,” he said, alongside Pacheco. Dias first came to the House in the 1980s for his first term and returned to the Senate in 1999 for three consecutive eight-year terms. “I die and I don’t see everything”, joked Esperidião Amin (PP-SC).

All that was left for Pacheco to do was resort to the House’s internal regiment and state: it would be up to him, President of the House, to cast the Minerva vote. Eduardo Gomes then approached and proposed a diplomatic exit. He would accept to withdraw the project from the agenda, as long as it did not go through the committees, as Wagner wanted, and was scheduled for the next Tuesday (10). With this agreement in hand, Pacheco voted against the request and Gomes withdrew the project from today’s agenda.

“Therefore, with the presidency breaking, we would go to the vote on the matter in the plenary of the Federal Senate, but Senator Eduardo Gomes is considering whether there is a possibility of composition so that the merits can be transferred to next week. matter, obviously without obstruction”, he concluded. So it was done.

Cid Gomes (PDT-CE) also asked for the floor to question the vote. According to him, Amin had expressed himself in favor of the request when he asked to speak, but he voted against it on the panel. “I am absolutely convinced that by mistake. Incidentally, he had already registered this mistake in his speech and then corrected it,” he said. The point of order, however, did not develop and was worth the registration in the panel, whether it was wrong or not.

*With information from Agência Senado.