Editing Politics of Spain (section)

===Senate===
{{Main|Senate of Spain}}
The [[upper chamber]] is the Senate. It is nominally the chamber of territorial representation. Four senators are elected for each province, with the exception of the insular provinces, in which the number of senator varies: three senators are elected for each of the three major islands – [[Gran Canaria]], [[Mallorca]] and [[Tenerife]] – and one senator for [[Ibiza]]-[[Formentera]], [[Menorca]], [[Fuerteventura]], [[La Gomera]], [[El Hierro]], [[Lanzarote]] and [[La Palma]]. The autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla each elect two senators.

In addition, the legislative assembly of each [[autonomous community]] designates one senator, and another for each one million inhabitants. This designation must follow proportional representation. For the 2011 elections, this system allowed for 266 senators, 208 of which were elected and 58 of which were designated by the autonomous communities. Senators serve for four-year terms or until the dissolution of the {{Lang|es|Cortes Generales}}. Even though the constitution explicitly refers to the Senate as the chamber of territorial representation, as seen from the numbers before, only one-fifth of the senators actually represent the autonomous communities.{{sfn|Encyclopædia Britannica}} Since the constitution allowed for the creation of autonomous communities, but the process itself was embryonic in nature – they were formed ''after'' the promulgation of the constitution, and the outcome was unpredictable – the [[constituent assembly]] chose the province as the basis for territorial representation.<ref name=sinopsis69>{{cite web|url=http://www.congreso.es/consti/constitucion/indice/sinopsis/sinopsis.jsp?art=69&tipo=2|title=Sinópsis artículo 69 de la Constitución Española (December 2003, updated 2011) |last=Alba Navarro|first=Manuel|publisher=[[Cortes Generales]]|access-date=19 February 2012}}</ref>

The Senate has less power than the Congress of Deputies: it can veto legislation, but its veto can be overturned by an absolute majority of the Congress of Deputies. Its only exclusive power concerns the autonomous communities, thus in a way performing a function in line with its nature of "territorial representation". By an overall majority, the Senate is the institution that authorizes the Government to adopt measures to enforce an autonomous community's compliance with its constitutional duties when it has failed to do so.

For the first time ever, on Friday, 27 October 2017, the senate voted, by majority, to invoke article 155 of the constitution, which gave the central government the power to remove the government of the autonomous region of Cataluña for acting against the constitution of 1978 by having called an illegal referendum on 1 October.