LEGISLATIVE ORGANIZATION IN THE BRAZILIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS: A COMPARISON BETWEEN SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

This work presents a detailed comparative analysis of the legislative organizations in Brazilian Senate and House of Representatives, based on internal rules of procedure of each house and the Constitution of 1988. The objective is to evaluate the level of similarity or deviation between the two houses, according to the policymaking distribution among individual parliamentarians, permanent commissions and political parties. Grounded on a literature related to the subject – the new rational choice institutionalism –, the comparative analysis expects to reveal which organizations or collective or individual actors conduct the legislative process in each house and what consequences this may imply in the pattern of political representation exerted therein. Converging to the literature, it is possible to observe that the houses are similar in several relevant issues, like the general influence of parties and partisanship coalitions in conducting the work both in the House of Representatives and Senate. Although, considering differences according to what propose the theories concerning delegation, relevant deviations were founded between Senate and House of Representatives on the parties and steering committees’ weigh in parliamentary flow: major power of parties in the House of Representatives; major power of steering committee in the Senate – particularly centered in its president