State Duma second half of the 1990s, the Duma became an important forum for lobbying by regional leaders and businessmen looking for tax breaks and legislative favors. The work of the leading committees, such as those for defense, foreign affairs, or budget, attracted a good deal of media attention and lobbying activity. In the early 2000s, following the 1999 parliamentary elections, the pro-presidential Unity party and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation were the leading forces in the State Duma. A 2016 exposé by Dissernet showed that 1 in 9 members of the State Duma had obtained academic degrees with theses
Sakhalin Oblast Duma 1994, were declared invalid, the regional Duma of the first convocation consisted of only 12 deputies. The Sakhalin Oblast Duma is unicameral just like most other legislative assembly body found in Russian federal subjects. It currently comprises of 28 deputies, with 14 of them running in single mandate constituencies and the other 14 in the single electoral district. Deputies are elected by public vote once every 5 years, whereby winners are determined by the two voting systems of first-past-the-post voting and party-list proportional representation, which is combined together in what is known as the parallel voting system. The Duma also