Bundesrat (German Empire)

as of 1894|261x261px The emperor summoned and closed the Bundesrat. It had to be summoned once each year or whenever one-third of the Bundesrat's members requested it. It could be in session when the Reichstag was not, but the Reichstag could not convene without the Bundesrat also being in session (Art. 12). Its legislative and executive functions were: • participation on an equal footing with the Reichstag in legislation (Art. 5) • participation in declarations of war and, with certain limitations, the conclusion of state treaties (Art. 11) == Mode of operation ==

Representatives and votes Each member state had at least one vote and could submit proposals to the Bundesrat. If the state had more than one vote, they had to be cast uniformly since it was the constituent state that voted, not an individual authorized representative voting as he wished. A simple majority of the votes cast (not of all possible votes) was required for a motion to pass. In the event of a tie, the presidential vote, which belonged to the chancellor (Art. 15), was decisive (Art. 7). The permanent (constitutionally defined) Bundesrat committees were: Land Army and Fortresses; Naval Affairs; Customs and Taxation; Trade and Transport; Railways, Mail and Telegraphs; the Judiciary; Accounts; and Foreign Affairs. == The chancellor and the Bundesrat ==

in 1873. He was German chancellor from 1871 to 1890. The chancellor's powers were rather meagre under the constitution. Unlike in many other countries, he had no right to speak in parliament (the Reichstag), could not submit bills to it, had no veto power over laws and could not dissolve the Reichstag. As minister president of Prussia, however, the chancellor was a member of the Bundesrat and had both the right to speak in the Reichstag and to control the 17 Prussian votes in the Bundesrat. Although only a member state was allowed to submit proposals to the Bundesrat, in practice it was often the chancellor who did so. The constitutional power of the Bundesrat was of considerable benefit to the chancellor and was the reason he treated his Bundesrat colleagues obligingly. They in turn helped the Bundesrat to present a united front to the outside world. They never used their right to speak in the Reichstag to voice an opinion that dissented from the chancellor's. In spite of the Bundesrat's considerable powers, the general public showed little interest in it. Experts held it in high esteem, but it was neither particularly criticized nor did the public have any special affection for it, due in large part to the fact that it did not meet in public. Precisely because the Bundesrat was an important instrument for Bismarck and emphasized the Empire's federalism, he wanted to enhance its position. He thought of making the meetings public, but it is doubtful whether the move would have changed the fact that the people were more interested in the unitary (one-state) bodies such as the emperor and the Reichstag. == First World War ==

On 4 August 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, the Reichstag unanimously passed a series of laws, among which was the War Enabling Act, in full the "Law on the Authorization of the Bundesrat to Take Economic Measures and on the Extension of the Time Limits of the Law on Bills of Exchange and Cheques in the Case of Warlike Events". With the War Enabling Act, the Reichstag partially transferred its legislative co-determination rights to the Bundesrat. The Act was a breach of the constitution and controversial in constitutional law. Although the term "economic measures" was elastic, the Bundesrat made rather moderate use of the War Enabling Act. It had to submit the emergency decrees drafted under the law to the Reichstag, which in turn rarely objected. Both state bodies shied away from open conflict. In the early days of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, on 10 November 1918, Friedrich Ebert, the chairman of the Council of the People's Deputies, which then exercised the rights of both the emperor and the chancellor, said that the Reichstag should not be reconvened but that there was no decision yet on its dissolution. According to the constitution, a resolution of the Bundesrat would have been necessary to dissolve the Reichstag. In light of the ongoing revolution, the Council saw no place for the Bundesrat as a combined executive and legislative body. Ebert did not want to simply dissolve the Bundesrat out of fear of making enemies of the (by then also revolutionary) state governments. On 14 November the Council issued a decree according to which the Bundesrat would continue to exercise its administrative powers, indicating implicitly that the remaining powers were no longer in effect. The new Reichsrat of the Weimar Republic convened on 14 August 1919, the date on which the Weimar Constitution became effective. == References ==