Santos has also worked as a consultant for the Instituto Centro-Americano de Administracion Publica in Costa Rica, and was a board member of the Citizenship Council of Manitoba from 1977 to 1980.

[6] Santos lost the Burrows NDP nomination[5] to Doug Martindale in 1988, and subsequently entered the party's leadership election.

[7] In 1990, Santos won the NDP nomination for Broadway by a single vote over Marianne Cerilli, whose candidacy was supported by the party leadership.

When the Broadway riding was eliminated by redistribution in 1999, Santos won the NDP nomination in Wellington (also in Winnipeg's northwest), and was returned by a wide margin in the 1999 provincial election.

His lawyer argued that Santos was simply trying to help his low-income supporters, saying that the MLA "didn't have the heart" to request membership fees from people who were unable to feed their families.