Spanish Senate: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

This article is part of the series Politics of Spain

The Crown - Head of State

Cortes Generales - Legislative branch    Congress of Deputies    Senate    Regional legislatures

Government - Executive branch    President of the Government    Council of Ministers    Regional governments

Judicial system - Judicial branch    General Council of the Judicial Power    Constitutional Court    Supreme Court    Regional high courts

Constitution    1977 Political Reform Act    1978 Constitution    Amendments Autonomous communities Madrid (capital city)

The Spanish Senate (Spanish: Senado) is the upper house of the Cortes, Spain's legislative branch.

It has 259 members: 208 are directly elected by popular vote and the other 51 are appointed by the regional legislatures. All senators serve four-year terms. The King has the reserve power to appoint senators whose number don't exceed one fifth of the total (thus, He can appoint up to 52 senators)

The last election was held on 14 March 2004. The results were as follows (regional legislatures-appointed members are counted sepparately):

(Absolute majority is 130 seats)

Elections to the Senate

In Spain, elections to the upper house are held at the same time as the elections to the lower, but the election method is completely different. While the Congress of Deputies uses the simple D'Hondt method to allocate seats in each constituency (whose number of seats is determined by its population), the Senate members are elected in 3 different ways:

Directly elected members

The majority of the members of the Senate (actually 208 out of 259) are directly elected by the people. Each province (except insular ones) form a constituency and is granted 4 senators (population doesn't count here, so the province of Madrid, roughly 6 million people, is highly underrepresented compared to Soria's 100.000 inhabitants). Insular provinces are treated specially, and each big isle (or group of little isles) is granted a number of senators between 1 and 3.

In the elections to the Senate (opposed to the elections to the Congress of Deputies), each party appoints 3 candidates (less in insular constituencies). Then, all candidates are printed (sorted by party) on a single (very big) sheet, called a bedsheet (Spanish sábana).

Each voter can cast up to 3 votes (less in insular constituencies) by crossing the empty square at the left of the selected candidate. If more than 3 votes are cast, all votes are null, but if less than 3 votes are cast, the remaining votes are counted as blank votes.

The 4 top candidates are elected as senators. This method usually ends as 3 senators for the most voted party and 1 senator for the next, but sometimes a 2-2 result appears.

Regional legislatures-appointed members

The legislatures of the autonomous communities can appoint senators from their own ranks. Each legislature can appoint up to population/1000000 (rounded) senators, that is, approximately 1 senator per million of people. Currently, regional legislatures appoint 51 senators even the Spanish population is 41 million because that rounding issues (Madrid's population is 5.6 million: elects 6 senators).

Usually, the legislatures-appointed members reflect the scaled composition of the regional legislatures, but there isn't a legal requirement.

Crown-appointed members

The King has the reserve power to appoint a number of senators that does not exceed 1/5 of the normal membership of the House. Currently, that number would be 1/5 of 259 (51.8, rounded to 52). That number of senators would change the power balance in the Senate, as shown in these graphics.

Appointed the King 52 senators, the majority line would raise from 130 to 156. The Royal senators could then give an absolute majority to PP or team with the PSOE and ECP to pass legislation.