Bundestag Tarper
| Federal Diet of Tarper Bundestag Tarper | |
|---|---|
| 5th Bundestag | |
 | |
| Type | |
| Type | Lower House of the Parliament of Tarper |
| History | |
| Founded | September 10, 2002 |
| Preceded by | People's Chamber (Northern Alliance) |
| Leadership | |
| Speaker of the Bundestag |
Edelmiro Villa, Socialist Unity Since 22 September 2013 |
| Leader of the Bundestag |
Felix Piatek, Socialist Unity Since 23 September 2013 |
| Shadow Leader |
Marie Miles, CPT Since 28 September 2017 |
| Structure | |
| Seats | 709 |
 | |
| Political groups |
Government (422) (Second Herzog cabinet)
Opposition Parties (287)
|
| Length of term7 | 4 Years |
| Elections | |
| Voting system | Single transferable vote |
| Last election | 24 September 2017 |
| Next election | 2021 |
| Meeting place | |
 | |
|
People's Assembly Building Mitte, Terraum, Tarper | |
| Constitution | |
| Aricles of Federalization | |
The Bundestag of Tarper (literally "Federal Diet") is a constitutional and legislative body at the federal level in Tarper. For its similar function, it is often described as a lower house of parliament along the lines of the US House of Representatives and the Canadian or the British House of Commons.
The Bundestag was established by chapter III of the Articles of Federalization (Constitution) in 2002 as one of the legislative bodies of Tarper and thus the historical successor to the earlier People's Chamber.
Since 2002 it has met in the People's Assembly Building in Terraum. Felix Piatek is the current Leader of the Bundestag. Members (Members of Parliament) of the Bundestag are usually elected every four years by all Tarperti citizens who are 15 and up in a single transferable vote system. There are currently 709 seats. The Election Day, however, can be earlier if the Chancellor loses a vote of no confidence and asks the President to dissolve the Bundestag in order to hold new general elections.
Contents
History
The earliest form of a legislature in Tarper is the Imperial Council of the TSE, after the 1848 revolution it was renamed to the National Congress. The Kingdom of Astra had no legislature since it was an absolute monarchy. The United Kingdoms of Tarper had employed a unicameral legislature like the TSE before it, the House of Lords. After the civil war, the CTCR also had a unicameral system, the People's Grand Assembly. The Republic of Tarper was the first of the Tarperti nations to have a bicameral structure, one for the members of the National Party, the Party Floor, and another for the Generals of the Army, the Officer's Chamber. During the civil war, the National kept the Party Floor and the Alliance had created the Alliance Council, both populated by one party, one unicameral, and the other bicameral. The Federal Chancellery of Tarper employs a bicameral structure, one for the states and another for the people.
Tasks
Together with the Bundesrat, the Bundestag is the legislative branch of the Government of Tarper.
Although most legislation is initiated by the executive branch, the Bundestag considers the legislative function its most important responsibility, concentrating much of its energy on assessing and amending the government's legislative program. The committees play a prominent role in this process. Plenary sessions provide a forum for members to engage in public debate on legislative issues before them, but they tend to be well attended only when significant legislation is being considered.
The Bundestag members are the only federal officials directly elected by the public; the Bundestag, in turn, elects the Chancellor and, in addition, exercises oversight of the executive branch on issues of both substantive policy and routine administration. This check on executive power can be employed through binding legislation, public debates on government policy, investigations, and direct questioning of the chancellor or cabinet officials. For example, the Bundestag can conduct a question hour (Qs and MPs), in which a government representative responds to a previously submitted written question from a member. Members can ask related questions during the question hour. The questions can concern anything from a major policy issue to a specific constituent's problem. Use of the question hour has increased markedly over the past forty years, with more than 20,000 questions being posed during the 2013-2017 term. Understandably, the opposition parties are active in exercising the parliamentary right to scrutinize government actions.
Constituent service does also take place in the form of the Petition Committee. In 2013, the Petition Committee received over 18,000 complaints from citizens and was able to negotiate a mutually satisfactory solution to more than half of them. In 2005, as a pilot of the potential of internet petitions, a version of e-Petitioner was produced for the Bundestag. This was a collaborative project involving The Plamyadian Legislature, The University of Terraum College of Politics and the Bundestag ‘Online Services Department’. The system was formally launched on 1 September 2005, and in 2008 the Bundestag moved to a new system based on its evaluation.
Election
Members serve four-year terms, with elections held every four years, or earlier in the relatively rare case that the Bundestag is dissolved prematurely by the president. The Bundestag can be dissolved by the president on the recommendation of the Chancellor if the latter has lost a vote of confidence in the Bundestag if the recommendation is made and accepted before the Bundestag acts to elect a new Chancellor. This has not happened in recent the history of the modern Bundestag. The procedures for these situations are governed by the Articles of Federalization. The Law regarding the election procedure itself is the Federal Election Act of 2004.
All candidates must be at least eighteen years old; the Chancellor can only hold the office for one term. The election uses the STV electoral system.
Distribution of seats
All of the Members of the Bundestag are elected directly from 709 constituencies (Single Transferable Vote system).
Accordingly, each voter has two votes in the elections to the Bundestag. The first vote, allowing voters to elect their local representatives to the Bundestag, decides which candidates are sent to Parliament from the constituencies.
The second vote is cast for a party list; it determines the relative strengths of the parties represented in the Bundestag for archival purposes.
Organization
Parliamentary groups
The most important organizational structures within the Bundestag are parliamentary groups or Factions, which are formed by political parties represented in the chamber which incorporate more than 5% of the Bundestag legislators; since 2017 the SU, Labour, and SDPT have formed the Government Faction under the Socialist Front parliamentary group. The size of a party's faction determines the extent of its representation on legislative committees, the time slots allotted for speaking, the number of committee chairs it can hold, and its representation in executive bodies of the Bundestag. The factions, not the members, receive the bulk of government funding for legislative and administrative activities.
The leadership of each faction consists of a party leader, several deputy leaders, and an executive committee. The leadership's major responsibilities are to represent the faction, enforce party discipline, and orchestrate the party's parliamentary activities. The members of each faction are distributed among working groups focused on specific policy-related topics such as social policy, economics, and foreign policy. The faction meets every Tuesday afternoon in the weeks in which the Bundestag is in session to consider legislation before the Bundestag and formulate the party's position on it.
Parties which do not fulfill the criterion for being a faction but have at least 2 seats in the Bundestag can be granted the status of a group of the Bundestag. This applied to the Green Party from 2002-2005. This status entails some privileges which are in general less than those of a faction. In the current Bundestag, there are no such groups (the Greens had only two MPs in parliament until 2005 and could thus not even considered a group anymore; the party now has now returned to the Bundestag with full faction status).
Executive bodies
The Bundestag's executive bodies include the Council of Elders and the Presidium. The council consists of the Bundestag leadership, together with the most senior representatives of each faction, with the number of these representatives tied to the strength of the Parliamentary groups in the chamber. The council is the coordination hub, determining the daily legislative agenda and assigning committee chairpersons based on Parliamentary group representation. The council also serves as an important forum for inter-party negotiations on specific legislation and procedural issues. The Presidium is responsible for the routine administration of the Bundestag, including its clerical and research activities. It consists of the chamber's president (usually elected from the largest faction) and vice presidents (one from each faction).
Committees
Most of the legislative work in the Bundestag is the product of standing committees, which exist largely unchanged throughout one legislative period. The number of committees approximates the number of federal ministries, and the titles of each are roughly similar (e.g., defense, agriculture, and labor). There are, as of the current fourth Bundestag, 23 standing committees. The distribution of committee chairs and the membership of each committee reflect the relative strength of the various Parliamentary groups in the chamber. In the current fourth Bundestag, the SU chaired twelve committees, Labour seven, CPT two, and the Greens, two. Members of the opposition party can chair a significant number of standing committees (e.g. The budget committee is always chaired by the biggest opposition party). These committees have either a small staff or no staff at all.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
