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Biscay (Congress Of Deputies Constituency)
Biscay ( eu, Bizkaia, es, Vizcaya) is one of the 52 constituencies ( es, link=no, circunscripciones) represented in the Congress of Deputies, the lower chamber of the Spanish parliament, the Cortes Generales. The constituency currently elects eight deputies. Its boundaries correspond to those of the Spanish province of Biscay. The electoral system uses the D'Hondt method and a closed-list proportional representation, with a minimum threshold of three percent. Electoral system The constituency was created as per the Political Reform Act 1977 and was first contested in the 1977 general election. The Act provided for the provinces of Spain to be established as multi-member districts in the Congress of Deputies, with this regulation being maintained under the Spanish Constitution of 1978. Additionally, the Constitution requires for any modification of the provincial limits to be approved under an organic law, needing an absolute majority in the Cortes Generales. Voting is on the ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congress Of Deputies
The Congress of Deputies ( es, link=no, Congreso de los Diputados, italic=unset) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales, Spain's legislative branch. The Congress meets in the Palacio de las Cortes, Madrid, Palace of the Parliament () in Madrid. It has 350 members elected by constituency, constituencies (matching fifty Provinces of Spain, Spanish provinces and two Autonomous cities of Spain, autonomous cities) by closed list proportional representation using the D'Hondt method. Deputies serve four-year terms. The presiding officer is the President of the Congress of Deputies, who is elected by the members thereof. It is the analogue to a speaker. In the Congress, MPs from the List of political parties in Spain, political parties, or groups of parties, form Parliamentary group (Spain), parliamentary groups. Groups must be formed by at least 15 deputies, but a group can also be formed with only five deputies if the parties got at least 5% of the nationwide vote, or 15% of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cortes Generales
The Cortes Generales (; en, Spanish Parliament, lit=General Courts) are the bicameral legislative chambers of Spain, consisting of the Congress of Deputies (the lower house), and the Senate (the upper house). The Congress of Deputies meets in the Palacio de las Cortes. The Senate meets in the Palacio del Senado. Both are in Madrid. The Cortes are elected through universal, free, equal, direct and secret suffrage, with the exception of some senatorial seats, which are elected indirectly by the legislatures of the autonomous communities. The Cortes Generales are composed of 615 members: 350 Deputies and 265 Senators. The members of the Cortes Generales serve four-year terms, and they are representatives of the Spanish people. In both chambers, the seats are divided by constituencies that correspond with the fifty provinces of Spain, plus Ceuta and Melilla. However, the Canary and Balearic islands form different constituencies in the Senate. As a parliamentary system, the C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universal Suffrage
Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stance, subject only to certain exceptions as in the case of children, felons, and for a time, women.Suffrage ''Encyclopedia Britannica''. In its original 19th-century usage by reformers in Britain, ''universal suffrage'' was understood to mean only ; the vote was extended to women later, during the |
Absolute Majority
A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fundamental rights of a minority, but they can also hamper efforts to respond to problems and encourage corrupt compromises in the times action is taken. Changes to constitutions, especially those with entrenched clauses, commonly require supermajority support in a legislature. Parliamentary procedure requires that any action of a deliberative assembly that may alter the rights of a minority have a supermajority requirement, such as a two-thirds vote. Related concepts regarding alternatives to the majority vote requirement include a majority of the entire membership and a majority of the fixed membership. A supermajority can also be specified based on the entire membership or f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organic Law (Spain)
An Organic Law ( es, Ley Orgánica) in Spanish law under the present Spanish Constitution of 1978 must be passed by an absolute majority of the Congress of Deputies (not merely a majority of those voting). The Spanish Constitution specifies that some areas of law should be regulated by this procedure, such as the Laws of Development of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms contained in the first section of Chapter Two of Title I of the Constitution, which was the basis for the Statutes of Autonomy of the various autonomous communities of Spain. Prior to the 1978 constitution this concept had no precedent in Spain. It was inspired by a similar concept in the current French Constitution of 1958, which established the French Fifth Republic. Martin Ibler,Der Grundrechtsschutz in der spanischen Verfassung am Beispiel des Eigentums" in ''Juristenzeitung'' 1999, p. 287 et. seq. In legal terms, organic laws are at the same level as ordinary laws. The difference between the two is in the more re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish Constitution Of 1978
The Spanish Constitution (Spanish, Asturleonese, and gl, Constitución Española; eu, Espainiako Konstituzioa; ca, Constitució Espanyola; oc, Constitucion espanhòla) is the democratic law that is supreme in the Kingdom of Spain. It was enacted after its approval in a constitutional referendum, and it is the culmination of the Spanish transition to democracy. The Constitution of 1978 is one of about a dozen of other historical Spanish constitutions and constitution-like documents; however, it is one of two fully democratic constitutions (the other being the Spanish Constitution of 1931). It was sanctioned by King Juan Carlos I on 27 December, and published in the ' (the government gazette of Spain) on 29 December, the date on which it became effective. The promulgation of the constitution marked the culmination of the Spanish transition to democracy after the death of general Francisco Franco, on 20 November 1975, who ruled over Spain as a military dictator for nearly 40 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boletín Oficial Del Estado
The ''Boletín Oficial del Estado'' (''BOE''; " en, Official State Gazette, label=none", from 1661 to 1936 known as the ''Gaceta de Madrid'', " en, Madrid Gazette, label=none") is the official gazette of the Spain, Kingdom of Spain and may be published on any day of the week. The content of the ''BOE'' is authorized and published by Royal Assent and with approval from the Ministry of the Presidency (Spain), Spanish Presidency Office. The ''BOE'' publishes decrees by the Cortes Generales, Spain's Parliament (comprising the Spanish Senate, Senate and the Congress of Deputies) as well as those orders enacted by the Spanish Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 provides in Article 9.3 that "The Constitution guarantees ... the publication of laws." This includes the official publishing of all Spanish judicial, royal and national governmental decrees, as well as any orders by the Council of Ministers. According to Royal Decree 181/2008 of 8 February, the ''BOE'' is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Provinces Of Spain
A province in Spain * es, provincias, ; sing. ''provincia'') * Basque (, sing. ''probintzia''. * Catalan (), sing. ''província''. * Galician (), sing. ''provincia''. is a territorial division defined as a collection of municipalities, although their origin dates back to 1833 with a similar predecessor from 1822 (during the Trienio Liberal) and with roots in the Napoleonic division of Spain into 84 prefectures in 1810. In addition to their political function, provinces are commonly used today as geographical references for example to disambiguate small towns whose names occur frequently throughout Spain. There are many other groupings of municipalities that comprise the local government of Spain. The boundaries of provinces can only be altered by the Spanish Parliament, giving rise to the common view that the 17 autonomous communities are ''subdivided'' into 50 provinces. In reality the system is not hierarchical but defined according to jurisdiction ( es, compet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1977 Political Reform Act
The Political Reform Act (Act 1/1977, of 4 January, for the Political Reform)Law 1/1977, of January 4, of the Political Reform '' Boletín Oficial del Estado. 5 January 1977''. was adopted on 18 November 1976, by the with the support of 435 out of 531 members (81% in favor) that formed the legislature, and submitted to a with a participation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proportional Representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divisions (political parties) of the electorate. The essence of such systems is that all votes cast - or almost all votes cast - contribute to the result and are actually used to help elect someone—not just a plurality, or a bare majority—and that the system produces mixed, balanced representation reflecting how votes are cast. "Proportional" electoral systems mean proportional to ''vote share'' and ''not'' proportional to population size. For example, the US House of Representatives has 435 districts which are drawn so roughly equal or "proportional" numbers of people live within each district, yet members of the House are elected in first-past-the-post elections: first-past-the-post is ''not'' proportional by vote share. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closed List
Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively only vote for political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some influence, that would be called an open list. Closed list systems are still commonly used in party-list proportional representation, and most mixed electoral systems also use closed lists in their party list component. Many countries, however have changed their electoral systems to use open lists to incorporate personalised representation to their proportional systems. In closed list systems, each political party has pre-decided who will receive the seats allocated to that party in the elections, so that the candidates positioned highest on this list tend to always get a seat in the parliament while the candidates positioned very low on the closed list will not. However, the candidates "at the water mark" of a given party are in the position ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D'Hondt Method
The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highest-averages methods. The method was first described in 1792 by future U.S. president Thomas Jefferson. It was re-invented independently in 1878 by Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt, which is the reason for its two different names. Motivation Proportional representation systems aim to allocate seats to parties approximately in proportion to the number of votes received. For example, if a party wins one-third of the votes then it should gain about one-third of the seats. In general, exact proportionality is not possible because these divisions produce fractional numbers of seats. As a result, several methods, of which the D'Hondt method is one, have been devised which ensure that the parties' seat allocations, which are of whole numbers, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
