Claudia Sheinbaum’s Balancing Act: Part 1

“I don’t think that the judicial system is something that ought to be that radically democratized. I think there is a level of technical competence that is required, and I think this system is not going to provide it. 

“When it comes to the administration of justice and the rule of law in Mexico, you have a whole chain where there are many different links. … The only thing that [these reforms fix] is something that probably didn’t need fixing. It wasn’t that urgent to change the judicial system at the very end of the rule-of-law chain, which is the judges. We needed to address the whole chain.”

—Tony Payan, Ph.D., Director, Center for the U.S. and Mexico; Claudio X. Gonzalez Fellow in U.S.-Mexico Studies

About the Episode

This is the first episode in a two-part conversation on the challenges facing Mexico domestically and in its relationship with the United States. Part 2 will be released here on June 16.

Mexico held its first judicial elections on June 1, following last year’s sweeping overhaul of the judiciary. Center for the U.S. and Mexico Director Tony Payan joins “Baker Briefing” to discuss the implications of the reforms and other domestic challenges facing President Claudia Sheinbaum as she carries forward the political project of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — including Mexico’s complex public safety landscape and mounting public debt.

This conversation was recorded on May 14, 2025. 

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Transcript

A full transcript of this episode is available here. This transcript was AI-generated and has not been through editorial review.

About ‘Baker Briefing’

Hosted by David M. Satterfield,  the “Baker Briefing” podcast delivers timely analysis on breaking policy developments and other critical policy issues of the day in conversations with experts at the Baker Institute. New episodes are released weekly.

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This material may be quoted or reproduced without prior permission, provided appropriate credit is given to the author(s) and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The views expressed herein are those of the individual author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.