Federal Assembly (Switzerland)

Prior to the establishment of the federal state in 1848, the only central organ of Switzerland was the Federal Diet (Tagsatzung). Following the Sonderbund War in 1847, the Tagsatzung became responsible for drawing up the Swiss Federal Constitution. The process of formulating legislative power resulted in clashing opinions, in particular in relation to the representation of the various cantons: the radicals, in the majority in the largest cantons, pushed for a system where representation was purely proportional to the population of each township; the small cantons, for their part, feared being marginalized. After long debates, a compromise was found by adopting the American model of bicameralism; the parliament will be composed of two chambers with equal power, and the agreement of both will be required to take a decision. The National Council, which represents the people, will comprise representatives from each canton with their distribution being proportional to the population of the cantons, while the Council of States, which represents the cantons, will be composed of the same number of representatives from each canton. According to the Constitution of 1848, the Federal Assembly is "the supreme authority of the Confederation". The Council of States, meanwhile, was not modified until 1979, by adding two new seats for the Canton of Jura which had just been created. ==Composition==

The Federal Assembly is made up of two chambers: • the National Council, with 200 seats; and • the Council of States, with 46 councillors. Seats in the National Council are allocated to the cantons proportionally, based on population. In the Council of States, every canton has two seats (except for the former "half-cantons", which have one seat each). United Federal Assembly On occasions the two houses sit jointly as the "United Federal Assembly" (; ; ; ). This is done to: • elect members of the Federal Council, the Federal Chancellor, the federal judges or (only in times of great national danger) a general • arbitrate in the event of conflicts between federal authorities; • issue pardons; or • listen to special announcements The United Federal Assembly is presided by the National Council's presidency. The Federal Assembly also confirms the appointment of the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (appointed by the Federal Council). ==Groups==

Parties can cooperate in parliamentary groups, also called political groups, allowing smaller parties access to rights as part of a caucus. At least five members from the same Council are needed to form a group. Only informal groups exist in the Council of States. Members of the National Council are required to be in a formal group in order to be able to sit on a committee. Since March 2009, there have been six groups in the Federal Assembly. The latest group to form was the Conservative Democratic Party which split off the Swiss People's Party in 2008. The Christian Democrats/EPP/glp Group (CEg) was formed after the 2007 elections, out of the former Christian Democratic (C) and EPP (E) groups. The current FTP/Liberal group (RL) was formed in 2003 out of the former FDP (R) and Liberal (L) groups; since the 2009 fusion of the Free Democratic and Liberal Parties, RL is once again a single-party group. In 2011, the CEg was disbanded, the Green Liberals formed their own parliamentary group (GL) and the three Christian parties formed the Christian-Evangelical Group (CE). 51st legislature (2019–2023) Currently (for the legislative period of 2019–2023), the six parliamentary groups are composed as follows: 50th legislature (2015–2019) After the 2015 federal election, the Federal Assembly was composed of 7 groups: == See also ==