The Bundesrat

The upper house in the German political system is the Bundesrat.

At a first glance, the composition of the Bundesrat looks similar to other upper houses in federal states such as the US Congress, since the Bundestag is a body representing all the German Lander (or regional states). However, there are two fundamental differences in the German system:

1. Its members are not elected (neither by popular vote nor by the State Parliaments). They are members of the State Cabinets, which appoint them and can remove them at any time. Normally, a state delegation is headed by the head of government in the Land, known in Germany as the Minister-President.

2. The States are not represented by an equal number of delegates, since the population of the respective state is a major factor in the allocation of votes (rather than delegates) to each particular Land. The vote allocation can be approximated as 2.01 + the square root of the Land's population in millions with the additional limit of a maximum of six votes so that it is consistent with something called the Penrose method based on game theory. This means that the 16 states have between three and six delegates.

This unusual method of composition provides for a total of 69 votes (not seats) in the Bundesrat. The State Cabinet may then appoint as many delegates as the state has votes, but is under no obligation to do so; it can restrict the state delegation even to one single delegate. The number of members or delegates representing a particular Land does not matter formally, since in stark contrast to many other legislative bodies, the delegates to the Bundesrat from any one state are required to cast the votes of the state as a bloc (since the votes are not those of the respective delegate). This means that in practice it is possible (and quite customary) that only one of the delegates (the Stimmführer or "leader of the votes" - normally the Minister- President) casts all the votes of the respective state, even if the other members of the delegation are present in the chamber.

Even with a full delegate appointment of 69, the Bunsderat is a much smaller body than the Bundestag with over 600 members. It is unusual for the two chambers of a bicameral system to be quite so unequal in size. But the Bundesrat has the power to veto a legislation that affects the powers of the states.