Parliament of Cantabria
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Through Unicameralism, Proportional representation and Universal suffrage
Prior to 1998, the Parliament was called Regional Assembly of Cantabria.
Following the 2023 Cantabrian regional election, the People's Party has the plurality of seats and is the governing party.
Elections and voting
The number of seats in the Parliament of Cantabria is set to a fixed-number of 35. All Parliament members are elected to a four-year term in a single multi-member district, consisting of the Community's territory (the province of Cantabria), using the D'Hondt method and a closed-list proportional representation system.
Voting is on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. Only lists polling above 5% of valid votes in all of the community (which include blank ballots—for none of the above) are entitled to enter the seat distribution.
The first elections were held in 1983 when the People's Coalition won a majority of seats and José Antonio Rodríguez became the first regional president. In the 2019 Cantabrian parliamentary election the Regionalist Party of Cantabria won 40% of the seats, needing the Socialist Party to govern.
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Building
The building where the Parliament of Cantabria is placed is the old Hospital of Saint Raphael, in the High Street (old district) of Santander, Spain.
The hospital was built in 1791 as a charity hospital for the poor and was the main hospital of Santander. It served during the Independence War and the disaster of the Cabo Machichaco. The hospital closed down in 1928, and in 1982, the regional assembly of Cantabria started the restoration project of the building, which ended in 1984 and won some awards.
Parliamentary bodies
Bureau
The Bureau of the Parliament of Cantabria is formed by the Speaker of the Parliament, two Deputy Speakers and two Secretaries.
Board of Spokespersons
The Board of Spokespersons is a parliamentary body consisting of the spokespersons of the parliamentary groups. Its main task is to decide the agenda.
Committees
The committees are formed by a group of deputies appointed by their respective parliamentary groups. Within them, legislative initiatives are known and discussed before they are debated in Parliament's Plenary.
There are different types of committees. They are called standing committees to those that are expressly established in the Standing Rules of the Parliament. The non-standing committees are created to discuss a specific issue or matter during a legislature.
Each committee elects a bureau consisting of a chair, a deputy chair and a secretary.
As of 2019, there are 12 standing committees. There are no non-standing committees.
Transparency
The Parliament of Cantabria is one of the most transparent regional parliaments in Spain (98.8%).
All the students of Cantabria go to the Parliament at least once on a school trip, where they meet some deputies and usually the president of the Parliament. They are told about the history of the building, how the Parliament works and how they can participate in democracy. Sessions are retransmitted by the regional television broadcaster Tele Bahía.