Dorothee Schlegel has been a member of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) since 2001. In Billigheim, where she now lives with her husband, she ran for mayor in 2009, but with 37.9% of the vote in the second round, she came in second behind the incumbent Reinhold Berberich (43.6%). In the 2010 mayoral election in neighbouring
Neckargerach, she also came in second with 45.4% of the vote in the second round, behind the CDU candidate Norman Link (54.1%). Since 2009 she has been a member of the district council in
Neckar-Odenwald-Kreises. In the
2013 and
2017 federal elections, she ran in the
Odenwald – Tauber constituency and on the SPD's Baden-Württemberg
state list. While she lost in both constituencies to
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) candidate
Alois Gerig, she was elected to the Bundestag via the state list in 2013. There, she served on the Committee on Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and the Committee on European Union Affairs. In 2017, however, her position on the list was not sufficient for re-election to parliament. Schlegel ran in the
2021 Baden-Württemberg state election in the Neckar-Odenwald constituency, but failed to enter the
Landtag of Baden-Württemberg. == Publications ==