On September 11th, the Mexican Senate approved a judicial reform which would mandate the election of Mexican judges at all levels. As the Cámara de Diputados had already approved the reform, the next step was for the reform to be passed in 17 Mexican states.
Well, that has already occurred. It wasn’t hard because the ruling MORENA party has a majority in 27 of the 32 state legislatures. (That’s 32 counting Mexico City, not a state but the equivalent of a state).
On September 11th, the same day the reform was passed early in the Senate, it had been passed in the legislatures of 18 states and Mexico City. That was quick!
Therefore, the reform has passed the states.
The first state to approve it was Oaxaca. Here’s a photo of the Oaxaca legislature approving the reform in the early morning shortly after the federal Senate approved it:
The other states that approved it were Tabasco, Veracruz, Quintana Roo, Tamaulipas, Yucatan state, Campeche, Tlaxcala, Morelos, Puebla, Guerrero, Colima, Nayarit, Zacatecas, Durango, Sinaloa, Baja California and Baja California Sur, all on September 11th.
So the reform already had 18 states approving, when only 17 were necessary.
The legislature of the state of Queretaro, however, rejected the reform. That couldn’t stop it, but the state is on record as having opposed it.
In his morning press conference of September 12th, President AMLO said that “The reform to the judiciary has already been approved” and that it “would be good” for the new law to be published on September 15th in the Mexican government’s official gazette.
And even though it wasn’t necessary, on September 12th the legislature of Mexico City approved the reform.
The passage of this reform shows how swiftly the Mexican Constitution can be amended. In contrast the U.S. Constitution is hard to amend and requires much more time to do so.
Now, Mexico is set to be the first country in the world to elect all its judges. The world now has an opportunity to see how well, or how badly, that works.