Bundestag

Bundestag translates accurately as "League Council", literally meaning "bound day". "Tag" (day), short for "Tagung" (meeting for a day), came to mean "meeting in conference" — another example being Reichstag — because a council gathering would happen on a given day of the week, month, or year.[5]

With the dissolution of the German Confederation in 1866 and the founding of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich) in 1871, the Reichstag was established as the German parliament in Berlin, which was the capital of the then Kingdom of Prussia (the largest and most influential state in both the Confederation and the empire). Two decades later, the current parliament building was erected. The Reichstag delegates were elected by direct and equal male suffrage (and not the three-class electoral system prevailing in Prussia until 1918). The Reichstag did not participate in the appointment of the Chancellor until the parliamentary reforms of October 1918. After the Revolution of November 1918 and the establishment of the Weimar Constitution, women were given the right to vote for (and serve in) the Reichstag, and the parliament could use the no-confidence vote to force the chancellor or any cabinet member to resign. In March 1933, one month after the Reichstag fire, the then President of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, a retired war hero, gave Adolf Hitler ultimate power through the Decree for the Protection of People and State and the Enabling Act of 1933, although Hitler remained at the post of Federal Government Chancellor (though he called himself the Führer). After this, the Reichstag met only rarely, usually at the Krolloper (Kroll Opera House) to unanimously rubber-stamp the decisions of the government. It last convened on 26 April 1942.

With the new Constitution of 1949, the Bundestag was established as the new West German parliament. Because West Berlin was not officially under the jurisdiction of the Constitution, a legacy of the Cold War, the Bundestag met in Bonn in several different buildings, including (provisionally) a former waterworks facility. In addition, owing to the city's legal status, citizens of West Berlin were unable to vote in elections to the Bundestag, and were instead represented by 22 non-voting delegates[6] chosen by the House of Representatives, the city's legislature.[7]

The Bundeshaus in Bonn is the former parliament building of Germany. The sessions of the German Bundestag were held there from 1949 until its move to Berlin in 1999. Today it houses the International Congress Centre Bundeshaus Bonn and in the northern areas the branch office of the Bundesrat ("Federal Council"), which represents the Länder – the federated states. The southern areas became part of German offices for the United Nations in 2008.

The former Reichstag building housed a history exhibition (Fragen an die deutsche Geschichte) and served occasionally as a conference center. The Reichstag building was also occasionally used as a venue for sittings of the Bundestag and its committees and the Bundesversammlung (Federal Assembly), the body which elects the German Federal President. However, the Soviets harshly protested against the use of the Reichstag building by institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany and tried to disturb the sittings by flying supersonic jets close to the building.

Since April 19, 1999, the German parliament has again assembled in Berlin in its original Reichstag building, which was built in 1888 based on the plans of German architect Paul Wallot and underwent a significant renovation under the lead of British architect Lord Norman Foster. Parliamentary committees and subcommittees, public hearings and parliamentary group meetings take place in three auxiliary buildings, which surround the Reichstag building: the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, Paul-Löbe-Haus and Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus.

In 2005, a small aircraft crashed close to the German Parliament. It was then decided to ban private air traffic over Central Berlin.

Reichstag building

The German Unity Flag is a national memorial to German Reunification that was raised on 3 October 1990; it waves in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin, seat of the Bundestag

Together with the Bundesrat, the Bundestag is the legislative branch of the German political system.

Although most legislation is initiated by the executive branch, the Bundestag considers the legislative function its most important responsibility, concentrating much of its energy on assessing and amending the government's legislative program. The committees (see below) play a prominent role in this process. Plenary sessions provide a forum for members to engage in public debate on legislative issues before them, but they tend to be well attended only when significant legislation is being considered.

The Bundestag members are the only federal officials directly elected by the public; the Bundestag in turn elects the Chancellor and, in addition, exercises oversight of the executive branch on issues of both substantive policy and routine administration. This check on executive power can be employed through binding legislation, public debates on government policy, investigations, and direct questioning of the chancellor or cabinet officials. For example, the Bundestag can conduct a question hour (Fragestunde), in which a government representative responds to a previously submitted written question from a member. Members can ask related questions during the question hour. The questions can concern anything from a major policy issue to a specific constituent's problem. Use of the question hour has increased markedly over the past forty years, with more than 20,000 questions being posed during the 1987–90 term. Understandably, the opposition parties are active in exercising the parliamentary right to scrutinize government actions.

Constituent service does also take place in the form of the Petition Committee. In 2004, the Petition Committee received over 18,000 complaints from citizens and was able to negotiate a mutually satisfactory solution to more than half of them. In 2005, as a pilot of the potential of internet petitions, a version of e-Petitioner was produced for the Bundestag. This was a collaborative project involving The Scottish Parliament, International Teledemocracy Centre and the Bundestag ‘Online Services Department’. The system was formally launched on 1 September 2005, and in 2008 the Bundestag moved to a new system based on its evaluation.[8]

The Bundestag is elected for four years, and new elections must be held between 46 and 48 months after the beginning of its electoral term, unless the Bundestag is dissolved prematurely. Its term ends when the next Bundestag convenes, which must occur within 30 days of the election.[9] Prior to 1976, there could be a period where one Bundestag had been dissolved and the next Bundestag could not be convened; during this period, the rights of the Bundestag were exercised by a so-called "Permanent Committee".[10]

Germany uses the mixed-member proportional representation system, a system of proportional representation combined with elements of first-past-the-post voting. The Bundestag has 598 nominal members, elected for a four-year term; these seats are distributed between the sixteen German states in proportion to the states' population eligible to vote.[11]

Every elector has two votes: a constituency vote (first vote) and a party list vote (second vote). Based solely on the first votes, 299 members are elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting. The second votes are used to produce a proportional number of seats for parties, first in the states, and then in the Bundestag. Seats are allocated using the Sainte-Laguë method. If a party wins fewer constituency seats in a state than its second votes would entitle it to, it receives additional seats from the relevant state list. Parties can file lists in every single state under certain conditions – for example, a fixed number of supporting signatures. Parties can receive second votes only in those states in which they have filed a state list.[11]

If a party, by winning single-member constituencies in one state, receives more seats than it would be entitled to according to its second vote share in that state (so-called overhang seats), the other parties receive compensation seats. Owing to this provision, the Bundestag usually has more than 598 members. The 19th and current Bundestag, for example, has 709 seats: 598 regular seats and 111 overhang and compensation seats. Overhang seats are calculated at the state level, so many more seats are added to balance this out among the different states, adding more seats than would be needed to compensate for overhang at the national level in order to avoid negative vote weight.[11]

In order to qualify for seats based on the party-list vote share, a party must either win three single-member constituencies via first votes or exceed a threshold of 5% of the second votes nationwide. If a party only wins one or two single-member constituencies and fails to get at least 5% of the second votes, it keeps the single-member seat(s), but other parties that accomplish at least one of the two threshold conditions receive compensation seats.[11] In the most recent example of this, during the 2002 election, the PDS won only 4.0% of the second votes nationwide, but won two constituencies in the state of Berlin.[12] The same applies if an independent candidate wins a single-member constituency,[11] which has not happened since the 1949 election.[12]

If a voter cast a first vote for a successful independent candidate or a successful candidate whose party failed to qualify for proportional representation, his or her second vote does not count toward proportional representation. However, it does count toward whether the elected party exceeds the 5% threshold.[11]

Parties representing recognized national minorities (currently Danes, Frisians, Sorbs, and Romani people) are exempt from the 5% threshold, but normally only run in state elections.[11]

Bundestag ballot: constituency vote on left, party list (showing top five list candidates) vote on right

The last Federal elections were held on Sunday, 24 September 2017, to elect the members of the 19th Bundestag.

The election saw the CDU/CSU win 33% of the vote, a drop of more than 8% and its lowest share of the vote since 1949, while the SPD also suffered its worst result since the 1949 with just 20% of the vote. Alternative for Germany (AfD)—which was previously unrepresented in the Bundestag—became the third largest party in the Bundestag with 12.6% of the vote and a plurality of the vote in Saxony. The FDP reentered the Bundestag after its exodus following the 2013 election loss where they fell under the 5% vote threshold:They had a result of 10.7%. The Left and the Greens obtain marginal increaces of 0.6% and 0.5% coming in at totals of 9.2% and 8.9% respectively. No party won an outright majority in any state, including Bavaria, where the CSU often wins majorities and won a majority of the vote in 2013.

Party		Constituency			Party list			Total seats	+/–
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats
	Christian Democratic Union (CDU)[lower-alpha 7]	14,030,751	30.2	185	12,447,656	26.8	15	200	−55
	Social Democratic Party (SPD)	11,429,231	24.6	59	9,539,381	20.5	94	153	−40
	Alternative for Germany (AfD)	5,317,499	11.5	3	5,878,115	12.6	91	94	+94
	Free Democratic Party (FDP)	3,249,238	7.0	0	4,999,449	10.7	80	80	+80
	The Left (DIE LINKE)	3,966,637	8.6	5	4,297,270	9.2	64	69	+5
	Alliance 90/The Greens (GRÜNE)	3,717,922	8.0	1	4,158,400	8.9	66	67	+4
	Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU)[lower-alpha 7]	3,255,487	7.0	46	2,869,688	6.2	0	46	−10
	Free Voters	589,056	1.3	0	463,292	1.0	0	0	0
	Die PARTEI	245,659	0.5	0	454,349	1.0	0	0	0
	Human Environment Animal Protection	22,917	0.0	0	374,179	0.8	0	0	0
	National Democratic Party	45,169	0.1	0	176,020	0.4	0	0	0
	Pirate Party Germany	93,196	0.2	0	173,476	0.4	0	0	0
	Ecological Democratic Party	166,228	0.4	0	144,809	0.3	0	0	0
	Basic Income Alliance	–	–	–	97,539	0.2	0	0	New
	V-Partei³	1,201	0.0	0	64,073	0.1	0	0	New
	German Centre	–	–	–	63,203	0.1	0	0	New
	Democracy in Motion	–	–	–	60,914	0.1	0	0	New
	Bavaria Party	62,622	0.1	0	58,037	0.1	0	0	0
	AD-DEMOCRATS	–	–	–	41,251	0.1	0	0	New
	Animal Protection Alliance	6,114	0.0	0	32,221	0.1	0	0	New
	Marxist–Leninist Party of Germany	35,760	0.1	0	29,785	0.1	0	0	0
	Healthresearch	1,537	0.0	0	23,404	0.1	0	0	New
	German Communist Party	7,517	0.0	0	11,558	0.0	0	0	New
	Human World	2,205	0.0	0	11,661	0.0	0	0	New
	The Greys	4,300	0.0	0	10,009	0.0	0	0	New
	Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität	15,960	0.0	0	6,693	0.0	0	0	0
	The Humanists	–	–	–	5,991	0.0	0	0	New
	Magdeburger Garden Party	2,570	0.0	0	5,617	0.0	0	0	New
	Alliance for Germany	6,316	0.0	0	9,631	0.0	0	0	0
	you.	772	0.0	0	3,032	0.0	0	0	New
	The Right	1,142	0.0	0	2,054	0.0	0	0	New
	Socialist Equality Party	903	0.0	0	1,291	0.0	0	0	0
	Bergpartei, die "ÜberPartei"	672	0.0	0	911	0.0	0	0	New
	Party of Reason	242	0.0	0	533	0.0	0	0	0
	The Violets – for Spiritual Politics	2,176	0.0	0	–	–	–	0	0
	Alliance C	1,717	0.0	0	–	–	–	0	New
	New Liberals	884	0.0	0	–	–	–	0	New
	The Union	371	0.0	0	–	–	–	0	New
	Family Party	506	0.0	0	–	–	–	0	0
	The Women	439	0.0	0	–	–	–	0	New
	Renter's Party	1,352	0.0	0	–	–	–	0	New
	Others	100,889	0.2	0	–	–	–	0	–
	Independents	2,458	0.0	0	–	–	–	0	0
Invalid/blank votes		586,726	–	–	460,849	–	–	–	–
Total		46,976,341	100	299	46,976,341	100	410	709	+78
Registered voters/turnout		61,688,485	76.2	–	61,688,485	76.2	–	–	–
Source: Bundeswahlleiter

As is the case with some other parliaments, the Bundestag is subject to the principle of discontinuation, meaning that a newly elected Bundestag is legally regarded to be a body and entity completely different from the previous Bundestag. This leads to the result that any motion, application or action submitted to the previous Bundestag, e.g. a bill referred to the Bundestag by the Federal Government, is regarded as void by non-decision (German terminology: "Die Sache fällt der Diskontinuität anheim"). Thus any bill that has not been decided upon by the beginning of the new electoral period must be brought up by the government again if it aims to uphold the motion, this procedure in effect delaying the passage of the bill. Furthermore, any newly elected Bundestag will have to freshly decide on the rules of procedure (Geschäftsordnung), which is done by a formal decision of taking over such rules from the preceding Bundestag by reference.

Any Bundestag is considered dissolved only once a newly elected Bundestag has actually gathered in order to constitute itself (Article 39 sec. 1 sentence 2 of the Basic Law), which has to happen within 30 days of its election (Article 39 sec. 2 of the Basic Law). Thus, it may happen (and has happened) that the old Bundestag gathers and makes decisions even after the election of a new Bundestag that has not gathered in order to constitute itself. For example, elections to the 16th Bundestag took place on 18 September 2005,[13] but the 15th Bundestag still convened after election day to make some decisions on German military engagement abroad,[14] and was entitled to do so, as the newly elected 16th Bundestag did not convene for the first time until 18 October 2005.[15]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bundestag.

• Bundesrat (Germany)
• Länderkammer
• Parliamentwatch
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• Official website
• German election database
• Map of constituencies
• Distribution of power
• Plenary speech search engine