The Senate of the Republic becomes Chamber of Regions. Palazzo Madama approved article 160 of the Boschi bill with 86 votes in favour, 1 against and 2 abstention.
Thus the new Senate takes shape, an assembly composed of ninety-five senators representatives of local institutions and by five senators who may be appointed by the President of the Republic". The next members of Palazzo Madama will be formally elected by the regional councils which will have the task of choosing them "among their own members and, to the extent of one for each, among the mayors of the municipalities of their respective territories".
The seats will be distributed among the Regions in proportion to the population and none can have fewer than two representatives. But the most important moment of the morning occurred during the vote on the amendment signed by Anna Finocchiaro who, after months of disputes and divisions, managed to bring the PD majority and minority to agree on the electivity of the Senate.
The law establishes that “the the duration of the mandate of the senators coincides with that of the bodies of the territorial institutions in which they were elected in accordance with the choices expressed by the voters for the candidates for directors on the occasion of the renewal of the same bodies, according to the procedures established by law". In other words: regional councilors and mayors, ie the members of the new Senate, will be chosen by the citizens and subsequently ratified by the regional councils precisely on the basis of the indications of the voters themselves. The details of the procedure will be fixed through an ad hoc provision arriving in the coming months.
