Last October, Professor Emeritus of CEU Cardenal Herrera University, Manuel Martínez Sospedra, published an opinion column in the media outlet “El Debate”, where he evaluated the possibility of increasing the size of the Congress of Deputies.}
The Emeritus Professor of Constitutional Law, Manuel Martínez Sospedra, a member of the research team, has published a column in the digital media outlet “El Debate” about the discussion surrounding the reform of the electoral system and the number of seats in the Congress of Deputies.
Firstly, Professor Martínez Sospedra provides a brief historical overview of the size of the Congress of Deputies. He emphasizes that, according to the Electoral Law of 1846, when Spain had a population of around 10 million people, the Congress already had its current size of 350 deputies. The particularity he points out is that, at that time, the Electoral Law stipulated that the criterion for defining the size of the congress was to have one deputy for every 40,000 inhabitants. Throughout the rest of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century until the Second Republic, the Congress reached its largest size, with 473 deputies in 1933.
In contrast to what happened before the Civil War, the constitutional rules of 1977 do not allow the adjustments established earlier based on a ratio between population and seats, freezing the size of the chamber between 300 and 400 deputies. Next, Professor Martínez Sospedra shows us how the Congress would look if the original 1977 inhabitants’ ratio had been maintained: in 2023, the Congress would have 469 seats, and if population aging and the consequent growth of the census are taken into account, it would reach 551 deputies. These sizes would be closer to the parliaments of Poland and France, respectively.
Finally, Professor Martínez Sospedra pointed out that considering the high demand recorded by the CIS (Centre for Sociological Investigation) for the reform of the electoral system and the improvement of proportionality, expanding the size of the Congress would also open the possibility of moving towards a more proportional electoral system similar to the German system, which combines proportional representation and the uninominal system.
Read the original column here (in Spanish).
