33-676: Francisco Javier "Patxi" López Álvarez ( Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpatʃi ˈlopeθ] ; born 4 October 1959) is a Spanish politician serving as Member of the Congress of Deputies and chair of the Constitutional Committee. He has only completed secondary education but never graduated from college. Previously, he has served as President of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country from 2009 to 2012 and President of
66-776: A Member of the Basque Parliament in 1991. He is known for his opposition to Basque independence. In 2005, he was the PSE-EE's candidate for the presidency of the Basque Country , but lost out to Juan José Ibarretxe of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV). In the 2009 election , the Nationalist Party was the party with the most votes with 30 seats, followed by the Socialist Party, with 25 seats. The illegalisation of
99-570: A constituency are required to be on the ballot and each citizen can sign only once for a party candidacy. The Electoral Board establishes the regulations for the collection of signatures. The deputies' term of office finishes four years after their election or when the Cortes are dissolved, which can take place jointly or separately with the dissolution of the Senate . Only the Monarch can dissolve Parliament on
132-472: A controversial election due to the absence of any party representing the secessionist Left Basque Nationalist spectrum. On 13 January 2016, he was elected President of the Congress of Deputies for the short eleventh legislature, with 130 votes (the deputies of PSOE and Citizens ) out of 350. This article about a Basque politician is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Member of
165-425: A matter, so they can approve or reject any bill. There are 23 permanent (standing) legislative committees and 8 permanent (standing) non-legislative committees which have responsibilities for House administration. The Plenary can create additional non-legislative committees at the beginning of each legislature. The non-standing committees are created with a specific purpose and their themes and duration are determined by
198-536: A party representing a sizeable voting segment, the Left Basque Nationalist Party Batasuna , enabled the socialists to reach an agreement with the People's Party for López to be elected as Lehendakari (Basque president). He was elected to the position on 5 May 2009 in the Basque Parliament , effectively ending thirty years of Basque nationalist rule in the Basque Country, in what was perceived as
231-461: A party to participate in the seat distribution for a constituency. At present, this condition applies only to Madrid and Barcelona . In March 2011, the Electoral Act was modified to require parties that are not represented either in Congress or in the Senate to collect signatures to support their candidacy to be able to run in the election. One-tenth of a percent of those registered to vote in
264-510: Is guaranteed a minimum allocation of two seats, and one seat each for Ceuta and Melilla for a total of 102 seats. The remaining 248 seats are allocated proportionally according to the population using the Hare quota . After the General Election , seats are assigned to the electoral lists in each constituency separately, using the D'Hondt method ; parties receive seats in approximate proportion to
297-612: Is presented, and the session ends when all items have been discussed. The Committees are the basic working bodies of the Congress designed to facilitate the work of the house. The committees have the same powers as the Plenary: to legislate by delegation of the plenary or at the request of the Bureau, and to check the Government by requesting information of the Administration or by requesting
330-497: Is the President of the Congress of Deputies , who is elected by the members at the first sitting of Congress after an election. The two principal bodies in Congress are parliamentary groups and parliamentary committees ( Spanish : comissiones ). All MPs are required to be members of a parliamentary group , the institutionalised form of political parties. Groups act with one voice represented by their spokesperson. In other words,
363-615: The President , the Bureau and the Board of Spokespersons . The President of the Congress of Deputies is the highest authority and it represents the House and it is, de facto, the whole parliament leader. As head of the Congress, it also chairs the Bureau, the Board of Spokespersons and the Permanent Deputation, and is the maximum responsible authority of the Congress's Police. The Bureau of
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#1732887137093396-507: The Spanish Constitution establishes that the Congress of Deputies must be composed of at least 300, and no more than 400 deputies. At present, the house has 350 deputies which is determined by the 1985 Electoral Act . The Spanish Constitution establishes that the deputies are chosen by universal , free, equal , direct , and secret suffrage . The election is held every four years or earlier in case of snap election . The members of
429-464: The Spanish Constitution . Exercising the autonomy recognised by the Constitution to the Congress of Deputies, the house is regulated by some internal rules established by itself in 1982 and it configures different government bodies to carry the pertinent competencies out. The governing bodies of the Congress of Deputies are the bodies which under their authority the House is manage. Those bodies are
462-430: The Congress are elected by proportional representation with closed lists in each constituency. There are 52 constituencies for the Congress of Deputies corresponding to the 50 provinces of Spain and two autonomous cities ( Ceuta and Melilla ). According to Spanish electoral law, the number of seats in each constituency can change in each election and it is specified when writs of election are issued. Each province
495-807: The Congress of Deputies Supported by (32) Opposition (171) The Congress of Deputies (Spanish: Congreso de los Diputados ) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales , Spain's legislative branch , the upper house being the Senate . The Congress meets in the Palace of the Parliament ( Palacio de las Cortes ) in Madrid . Congress has 350 members elected from fifty-two constituencies (the fifty provinces and two autonomous cities ) using closed list D'Hondt proportional representation . Deputies serve four-year terms. The presiding officer and speaker
528-489: The Congress of Deputies is the collective body that represents the House and manages the day-to-day of the Chamber, preparing the budget and making all the necessary decisions to allow the proper functioning of the functions of the Congress. The Board of Spokespersons of the Congress of Deputies is the collective body formed by representatives of the parliamentary groups and normally, government representatives, that establishes
561-644: The Congress of Deputies , the lower house of the Spanish Cortes Generales , in the short lived 11th legislature from January 2016 to July 2016. He was also Secretary-General of the Socialist Party of Euskadi – Euskadiko Ezkerra (PSE-EE), the Basque affiliate of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), from 2002 to 2014. López, born into a socialist family, was influenced early in life by
594-470: The Permanent Deputation is a temporary extension of the house. The Permanent Deputation is presided by the President of the Congress . It is composed of a proportional number of deputies depending on the numerical importance of the different Parliamentary Groups. All members of the house are assigned to one of the Parliamentary Groups reflecting their party affiliation or ideology. The formation of
627-563: The Plenary. The members of the committees are chosen by the Parliamentary Groups with the number of members proportional to the number of seats in the House, which means they are not effective checks on the Government when the party in office has a parliamentary majority. Once the committees are created they must elect in their first meeting the bureau of the committee, composed of a chair, two deputy chairs and two secretaries. In practice,
660-546: The Spanish Parliament is a parliament of groups, not individual MPs who are constrained to act only as part of the group. MPs can only act autonomously when submitting oral or written questions. As a result of the 2019 general election , there were 168 female deputies or 48% of all members, making Spain the European country with the highest percentage of women in parliament, surpassing Sweden and Finland. Section 68.1 of
693-594: The agenda of the House. The working bodies of the Congress of Deputies are the Plenary, the Committees , the Permanent Deputation and the Parliamentary Groups . The Plenary is the central body of the Congress of Deputies which allows the house to exercise their choices. It is the sitting of all the members of the Parliament when half plus one of its members are attending the house. This body represents
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#1732887137093726-399: The appearance of any member of the Government or Administration. There are two types of committees: standing and non-standing. The standing committees are defined by the Congress's standing orders and non-standing committees, created by the Plenary. The standing committees examine bills and make amendments. The Plenary of the Congress can confer upon them full legislative power in relation to
759-399: The committee. The members of the subcommittees are designated by the committee. The Permanent Deputation is a body created in order to have a permanent constituted legislative power. It is responsible for safeguarding the powers of the house between the legislative sessions (January, July and August) or when their term has finished because of termination or dissolution. In these three cases,
792-413: The largest party always enjoys a clear over-representation in the distribution of chairpersons. Subcommittees can also be created by the Plenary at the request of the committees. There are two types of subcommittees, the ordinary subcommittees, the purpose of which is to discuss and report on a specific issue, and the reporting subcommittees, the purpose of which is to write a draft bill to be discussed in
825-415: The number of votes each received in the constituency. A strictly proportional system would result in fractional seats; the D'Hondt method resolves this by favoring parties receiving larger votes. For provinces that elect at least 24 deputies, the 1985 Electoral Act establishes a 3% minimum valid votes by constituency requirement (blank votes count towards the total votes, but invalid ballots do not count) for
858-734: The pair are figures that represent in allegorical form Justice and Peace, Science, Agriculture, Fine Arts, Navigation, Industry, Commerce and so on. Ponzano also executed two bronze lions for the building's access stairway in a more realistic manner. 40°24′59″N 3°41′48″W / 40.41639°N 3.69667°W / 40.41639; -3.69667 Closed list Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results Closed list describes
891-468: The parliamentary groups takes place at the beginning of each legislature. The deputies (members) who cannot satisfy the rules for forming a group are placed together in their own group (called the Mixed Group) so that they can still participate in the functions of Parliament. The XV legislature of Spain started on 17 August 2023 when the Cortes Generales were constituted, once the 2023 general election
924-634: The political stance of his father, Eduardo López Albizu , a prominent Spanish left-wing anti-Francoist activist. He joined the Young Basque Socialist movement in 1975, and was its Secretary-General from 1985 to 1988. He joined PSE in 1977, and was elected to the Spanish Congress of Deputies at the 1986 General Election representing Vizcaya Province . In the PSE he rose steadily to prominence before being elected Secretary-General in 1997, having become
957-587: The request of the President of the Government after the deliberation of the Council of Ministers . The dissolution of the Cortes also takes place if there is a failed legislature or two months after a failed investiture session, in this case, the Sovereign dissolves the house with the countersign of the President of the Congress of Deputies . During their mandate, the deputies have some guarantees and privileges to carry their responsibilities out according to Section 97 of
990-407: 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 of either losing or winning their seat depending on the number of votes the party gets. "The water mark"
1023-523: The unity of the house and it works through the plenary sessions which can be ordinary or extraordinary. The ordinary sessions take place during the two meeting terms: September to December and February to June. The extraordinary sessions are convened at the request of the Prime Minister of Spain , the Permanent Council or the absolute majority of the house. In this kind of session a particular agenda
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1056-682: The variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively vote for only 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
1089-500: Was held. The building, Palacio de las Cortes , has a neoclassical style. It was designed by Narciso Pascual Colomer , and built between 1843 and 1850. It sits by the Carrera de San Jerónimo, in Madrid. The relief on the facade by sculptor Ponciano Ponzano centers on a sculpture of Spain embracing the constitutional state, represented by a woman with her arm around a young girl. Surrounding
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