Career in state politics Since the
2004 state elections, Rehlinger has been a member of the
Landtag of Saarland. In parliament, she was the chairwoman of the committee on European affairs (2008–2009) and of the committee on education, cultural affairs and media (2009–2011). From 2011 until 2012, she was her parliamentary group's deputy chairwoman, under the leadership of chairman
Heiko Maas. Between 2012 and 2014, Rehlinger was state minister of justice, consumer protection and environmental affairs in the government of the
minister-president of
Saarland Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. In 2014, she succeeded
Heiko Maas as deputy minister-president and state minister for economic affairs, first under the leadership of Kramp-Karrenbauer (2014–2018) and later
Tobias Hans (2018–2022). She was the candidate of SPD in
2017 state elections, but lost against Kramp-Karrenbauer and continued her role in the state government instead. As one of her state's representatives at the
Bundesrat, Rehlinger sat on the committee on labour, integration and social policy, the committee on economic affairs and on the committee on transport. In March 2018, Rehlinger succeeded
Heiko Maas as leader of the SPD in Saarland. At a party convention, she was elected with a majority of 94.5 percent.
Career in national politics Rehlinger co-chaired the SPD's national conventions in Berlin (2015, 2017, 2019) and
Wiesbaden (2018). In the negotiations to form a
coalition government on the national level following the
2017 federal elections, Rehlinger co-chaired the working group on agriculture. Her counterparts were
Julia Klöckner and
Christian Schmidt. She was also a member of the working group on transport. At a SPD national convention in 2019, Rehlinger, with
Klara Geywitz,
Hubertus Heil,
Kevin Kühnert and
Serpil Midyatli, was elected as one of the five deputies of the party's co-chairs
Saskia Esken and
Norbert Walter-Borjans. In the negotiations to form a so-called "
traffic light coalition" of the SPD, the
Green Party and the
Free Democratic Party (FDP) following the
2021 federal elections, Rehlinger led her party's delegation in the working group on mobility. Her co-chairs from the other parties were
Anton Hofreiter and
Oliver Luksic. Since 2023, Rehlinger has been coordinating her party's relations with Asia. In this capacity, she joined chairman
Lars Klingbeil on an official trip to China, South Korea and Mongolia that year. Rehlinger was nominated by her party as delegate to the
Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the
president of Germany in
2022. In October 2023, Rehlinger joined the first joint cabinet retreat of the German and French governments in Hamburg, chaired by
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and
President Emmanuel Macron. On 18 October 2024, she was elected
President of the Bundesrat. Her one-year term started on 1 November 2024 and ended 1 November 2025; she was succeeded by
Andreas Bovenschulte. ==Other activities==