Qualla: Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais

Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrevruas, CC BY-SA 3.0. Seventy-seven deputies. That is the number Minas Gerais has settled on for its state legislature after two centuries of experimentation, dictatorship, and constitutional revision. They meet on Avenida Afonso Pena in Belo Horizonte, in a building that has housed the assembly since the state capital moved there from Ouro Preto in 1897, and they vote on everything from the state budget to the military police to the question of whether any given governor should be allowed to face trial. The Assembleia Legislativa de Minas Gerais, ALMG for short, has outlasted an empire, a republic, two dictatorships, and a military junta. It keeps meeting.

Image: Andrevruas | CC BY-SA 3.0

Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais: Before There Was a Capital

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AnisiaFerreira, CC BY-SA 4.0. The story begins in Ouro Preto. In 1824, two years after Brazil declared independence from Portugal, the first Brazilian Constitution designated Ouro Preto as the administrative hub of the province of Minas Gerais. Ten years later an amendment to that constitution allowed the pro...

Image: AnisiaFerreira | CC BY-SA 4.0

Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais: The Capital Moves, the Library Follows

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sudhertzen, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1891 the new republic produced a new Minas Gerais state constitution, which would stand with amendments for nearly a century. The legislature became a bicameral Congress, a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate. Then, in 1897, the state capital itself moved. A new city was being bu...

Image: Sudhertzen | CC BY-SA 4.0

Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais: The Authoritarian Interruptions

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brasilfeliz2, CC0. The Assembly's 20th century was repeatedly interrupted by the reach of central power. After Getúlio Vargas seized national leadership in the 1930 revolution, state legislatures were dissolved. A 1935 state constitution revived Minas Gerais' assembly as a unicameral body of 48 dep...

Image: Brasilfeliz2 | CC0

Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais: How a Bill Becomes a Law in Minas

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andre Oliveira, CC BY 2.0. The current ALMG has three government blocks and one opposition block, with deputies distributed across more than a dozen parties. A bench is any party with at least five deputies; a block is a coalition of at least sixteen. Both benches and blocks have leaders and vice-leaders. ...

Image: Andre Oliveira | CC BY 2.0

Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais: What the 77 Decide

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrevruas, CC BY 3.0. The Assembly's powers are broad. It plans the state budget, authorizes state borrowing, creates or eliminates civil service positions, oversees the military and civil police, approves urban development plans, and organizes the state's public ministry, public defender's office, an...

Image: Andrevruas | CC BY 3.0