Madrid Assembly

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The Madrid Assembly (Spanish: Asamblea de Madrid) is the unicameral regional legislature of the Autonomous Community of Madrid since the approval of the Madrid Charter of Autonomy in 1983.

It is elected every four years during the Spanish Regional and Municipal elections, as the Community of Madrid Charter of Autonomy does not recognise the right to call separately for elections (as in the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia and Andalusia), save for exceptional situations like the scandal that deadlocked the May 2003 Assembly and forced to call the October 2003 elections. According to the Charter, the Assembly is empowered to draw the Madrid Regional legislation, to control the Regional Government's actions and to elect the President of the Community of Madrid.

The Assembly meets in purpose-built dwelling in the district of Vallecas of Madrid inaugurated in 1998 as to host specifically the Madrid Assembly.

[edit] Membership

The legislature is currently (as of 2007) made up of 120 deputies, elected all at once in closed party lists for terms of 4 years. Seats are allocated with the proportional D'Hondt method in one constituency, which makes the Madrid Assembly one of the biggest parliaments in the world with one only constituency. In 2007, this fact moved President Esperanza Aguirre to propose splitting the Community of Madrid in twelve constituencies^[1] of 9 to 15 AMs each. The alleged benefit was increasing the contact between statesmen and their electors, but the reform was rejected by the rest of parties in the Assembly on the grounds that it was not a pressing matter, and it would alter the composition of the assembly in favour of the most voted party. Eventually, the proposal was abandoned even though President Aguirre had the majority to pass it through the Assembly, because it would be defeated in the Cortes Generales as it had to be done through a process of reform of the Charter of Autonomy.

Parties that obtain more than 5AMs can form a parliamentary group, in order to organise and participate in the debates and committees of the assembly. Parties that do not reach that number of seats will be part of the mixed group. Currently the threashold for obtaining seats in the madrid Assembly is of 5% of the votes, being it mathematically impossible to obtain less than five seats.

Currently three parties are represented in the Assembly: the People's Party, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party and United Left all of which have their own parliamentary group. The last elections were held at May 27, 2007, and the result were as follows:

The current Assembly was elected in 2007, and will serve no further than 2011. The People's Party holds a 7-seat majority

[edit] Leadership

The Madrid Assembly's Leadership resides in the Bureau of the Assembly made out of a President (Speaker), three Vice Presidents who chair debate when the President is absent, and three Secretaries, elected in the first session of each newly elected Assembly. The Bureau is tasked with managing the Assembly schedule and interpreting its rules of order, even with the power to expel disrupting members from the sessions. Currently all parties are represented in the Bureau, which as of 2007 is dominated by the ruling People's Party.

There is also a second, consultive body, the Spokespersons' Council (Spanish: Junta de Portavoces), which is made up of the leaders and spokespersons from each parliamentary group^[3] in the Assembly and has the right to be "heard"^[4] before the Bureau takes some decisions such as scheduling debates and votes. In the Spanish system, however, ruling parties usually do not hold a tight grip over the Parliament's schedule, nor do they use it to turn down the opposition proposals without debate: they are just voted down in committee or by the full house after the shortest debate allowed by the rules of order. Thus, while control of the Bureau and the Spokespersons' Council is definitely important, it is not a critical matter as it sometimes becomes in other systems.

[edit] Committees

The Assembly organises its work on to different committees. Committees are constituted by the bureau of the Assembly on the advice of the Spokespersons' Council. The number and grouping of its members is also determined at the same time. The election of the membership of the committees is a role of the parliamentary groups that have to be always represented in the committees. The committees are directed by a Bureau composed of a Chair, a vice-chair and a secretary and each group is to designate a Spokesperson and an adjutant spokesperson for the committee, that will usually take care of that matters also in the plenary. As for the current term committees are composed of 18 members distributed the following way: PP 10, PSOE 6, IU 2 or of 9 distributed on an equal way.

[edit] External links

• Official site of the Madrid Assembly - In Spanish by default, also has an English version