Paulo Pimenta

Paulo Roberto Severo Pimenta (born 19 March 1965) is a Brazilian journalist, agricultural technician, and politician, who was the Chief Minister of Brazil's Secretariat of Social Communication from September 10, 2024 to January 7, 2025 and previously from January 1, 2023 to May 15, 2024. He has been a member of the Workers' Party (PT) since 1985.

During the course of his political career, he was a councilman for the PT in his hometown of Santa Maria, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and was elected state deputy in 1998. In 2000, he was elected vice-mayor of Santa Maria, with Valdeci Oliveira as mayor. Since 2003, he has been a federal deputy from the state of Rio Grande do Sul. In 2008, he ran to be the mayor of Santa Maria but came in second place. In 2010, he was the most voted for candidate from the PT in Rio Grande do Sul, with 153,172 votes. In 2014, he was reelected as a federal deputy with the most votes for a PT candidate, with 140,868 votes, becoming the 6th most voted federal deputy in Rio Grande do Sul.

Early life Pimenta is the son of Paulo Roque Mello Pimenta, ex-employee of the autonomous department DAER, and Rita Beatriz Severo Pimenta, a retired state school teacher. He is married to teacher Cláudia Pereira Dutra and has three children: Francisco, Antonio and Paula.

Political career At 16 years old, Pimenta was the president of the students' union of the agricultural college at UFSM, and in 1981, was president of the Central Directory of Students. As councilman, he was the vice-president of the chamber of councilors, presided over the Justice and Human Rights commission, the Public Services commission, and the subcommission of Education, Culture, Science and Technology. The latter commission elaborated on the Organic Law of Santa Maria, along with having proposed to the commission the internal regime of the chamber. Pimenta was the leader of the PT faction in the chamber, as well as the leader of the opposition. He was reelected in 2006 with 104,430 votes, and was reelected again in 2010 as the most voted deputy from the PT in Rio Grande do Sul with 153,172 votes.

In June 2017, Pimenta and fellow federal deputy placed Carla Zambelli under citizen's arrest after she was accused of defamation. The accusation came after Zambelli claimed she was "working, unlike them, who were stealing". Pimenta had legislative police escort her to the police station inside the Congress. The deputy, however, did not press charges against Zambelli.

In 2018, he was investigated for supposed money laundering; however, in October 2020, a regional court stopped the investigation into Pimenta.

Career in the Chamber of Deputies In his first months in Congress, Pimenta was part of the CPI on Arms Trafficking, integrated the Commission on External Relations and National Defence and the Commission on Public Safety and Combatting Organized Crime. He also introduced bill 7134/02, which was the origin of new drug laws in Brazil, as well as for the provisory measures on gene delivery, which resulted in new biosecurity laws. He had a decisive role in the creation of the Federal University of Pampa (UNIPAMPA).

In 2009, Pimenta presented to Congress several bills such as those supporting public student support funds (4945/09), digital citizenship (4805/09), wine making (1.988/03), the Emprego 40 Anos program (3.345/04), criminal liability (411/03), and a proposed constitutional amendment to require a diploma to enter the profession of journalism (386/2009). In 2009 as well, he was designated the reporter of the CPI on urban violence, that proposed a new model of public security in Brazil. In the same year, he was the president of the CPI on Combatting Organized Crime, as well as the Commission on Legislative Participation.

CPI on Mensalão

On 11 August 2005, Pimenta was the vice-president of the Parliamentary Commission of the inquiry into the Mensalão scandal, which resulted in AP 470, judged by the Supreme Federal Court in 2012. Regardless, he left the position after presenting a list of people that benefitted from transfers made by businesses owned by Marcos Valério in Minas Gerais, following what was shown to be the precursor to Mensalão that had begun in 1998 among officials in the government of Minas Gerais, a scandal known as the Mensalão tucano.

The list of implicated deputies from the state provoked a strong negative response from the members of the two CPIs, due to the fact that it had been delivered during an "informal" meeting between Valério and Pimenta, recorded on camera in the parking garage of the Chamber of Deputies. The act was considered to be behavior incompatible with the position of the commission's vice-president. In response, however, Pimenta had declared that he had not acted in bad faith. As a result, there was a petition to revoke his position due to having broken chamber decor. Pimenta was pressured to resign from his position so as to not risk delegitimizing the parliamentary commission on the inquiry.

Chief minister of Secretary of Social Communication On 29 December 2021, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva confirmed that Pimenta would be, if he was re-elected, the Minister of the Secretariat of Social Communication in his administration. In his inaugural speech he made it a priority to combat fake news and the end of the fencing in of journalists that was prominent during the Jair Bolsonaro administration. Pimenta was succeeded by Sidônio Palmeira on January 14, 2025.