House of Representatives of the Netherlands

House of Representatives Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal
States-General of the Netherlands
Type
Type	Lower House
Leadership
President	Gerdi Verbeet (Labour Party)
Parliamentary Leader	Stef Blok (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy) Job Cohen (Labour Party) Geert Wilders (Party for Freedom) Sybrand van Haersma Buma (Christian Democratic Appeal) Emile Roemer (Socialist Party) Alexander Pechtold (Democrats 66) Jolande Sap (GreenLeft) Arie Slob (ChristianUnion) Kees van der Staaij (Reformed Political Party) Marianne Thieme (Party for the Animals)
Structure
Members	150
Political groups	VVD (31)      PvdA (30)      PVV (24)      CDA (21)      SP (15)      D66 (10)      GL (10)      CU (5)      SGP (2)      PvdD (2)
Elections
Voting system	Party-list proportional representation
Last election	Dutch general election of 2010
Meeting place
Binnenhof The Hague, Netherlands
Website
House of Representatives Tweede Kamer

The House of Representatives (Dutch: Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal [ˈtʋeːdə ˈkaːmər dər ˈstaːtə(n) ˌɣeːnəˈraːɫ] ( listen), or simply: Tweede Kamer, literally, Second Chamber) is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of the Netherlands, the States-General. It has 150 seats which are filled through elections using a party-list proportional representation. It sits in The Hague.

Name

Although this body calls itself "The Dutch House of Representatives" on its English-language official website, this is not a direct translation of its name in Dutch. Translated directly, in colloquial Dutch, this house of parliament is invariably called "The Second Chamber" or simply "The Chamber". Rather than "representative" (afgevaardigde) a member of this body is referred to as Tweede Kamerlid ("member of the Second Chamber"). In contrast, senaat (in lower case; "Senate") is an accepted, yet unofficial synonym for the First Chamber, with its members occasionally being referred to as senator, along with Eerste Kamerlid, in Dutch.

Functions

The House of Representatives is the main chamber of parliament, where discussion of proposed legislation and review of the actions of the cabinet takes place. Both the Cabinet and the House of Representatives itself have the right to propose legislation; the House of Representatives discusses it and, if adopted by a majority, sends it on to the Senate of the Netherlands (Eerste Kamer).

Review of the actions of the cabinet takes the form of formal interrogations, which may result in motions urging the cabinet to take, or refrain from, certain actions. No individual may be a member of both parliament and cabinet, except in a caretaker cabinet that has not yet been succeeded when a new House is sworn in.

The House of Representatives is also responsible for the first round of selection for judges to the Supreme Court of the Netherlands (Hoge Raad der Nederlanden). It submits a list of three names for every vacant position to the Government.

Furthermore, it elects the Dutch Ombudsman and his subsidiaries.

Elections

The maximum term of the House of Representatives is four years. Anybody eligible to vote in the Netherlands also has the right to establish a political party and contest elections for the House of Representatives (see political parties of the Netherlands). Elections are called when the government loses parliament's confidence, the governing coalition breaks down, the term of the House of Representatives expires or when no governing coalition can be formed.

Parties wanting to take part must register 43 days before the elections, supplying a nationwide list of at most 50 candidates (80 if the party already has more than 15 seats). Parties that do not have any sitting candidates in the House of Representatives must also pay a deposit (11,250 euro for the November 2006 elections, for all districts together) and provide 30 signatures of support from residents of each of the 19 electoral districts in which they want to collect votes. The candidate lists are placed in the hands of the voters at least 14 days before the election. Two or more parties can agree to combine their separate lists (this is known as a 'list combination' or lijstencombinatie), which increases the chance of winning a remainder seat. Each candidate list is numbered, with the person in the first position known as the lijsttrekker ("list puller"). The lijsttrekker is usually appointed by the party to lead its election campaign. The lijsttrekker of the party receiving the most seats will often become the Prime Minister. Parties may choose to compete with different candidate lists in each of the 19 electoral districts, but as seats are allocated on national rather than district level, most parties have almost identical lists in all districts with candidates running nationwide. Only large parties usually have some regional candidates at the bottom of their lists.

Citizens of the Netherlands aged 18 or over have the right to vote; exceptions are: 1) prisoners serving a term of more than one year are excluded; 2) those who have been declared incapable by court because of insanity are also excluded. A single vote can be placed on any one candidate. Many voters select one of the lijsttrekkers (Jan Peter Balkenende, for example, received 2,198,114 of the CDA's 2,608,573 votes in the November 2006 elections), but alternatively a preference vote may be made for a candidate lower down the list.

Once the election results are known, the seats are allocated to the parties. The number of valid national votes cast is divided by 150, the number of seats available, to give a threshold for each seat (the kiesdeler). Each party's number of votes is divided by this threshold to give an initial number of seats. Any party that received fewer votes than the threshold (i.e., less than one in 150 of the total votes cast) fails to gain representation in the House of Representatives, thus the threshold is always at 0.67% of the total number of valid national votes. This is one of the lowest thresholds for national parliament elections in the world. In 1977, for instance, one party gained a seat despite winning only 0.77% of the vote. Any party that received more than 75% of the threshold will have its deposit refunded.

Exterior of the House of Representatives

After the initial seats are allocated, the remainder seats are allocated using the D'Hondt method of largest averages. This system favours slightly the larger parties. List combinations compete for the remainder seats as one list of the combined size of all parties in the combination, thus having more chance to gain remainder seats. Afterwards, the seats are allocated to the parties within the list combination using the largest remainder method.

Once the number of seats allocated to each party is known, in general they are allocated to candidates in the order that they appear on the party's list. (Hence, before the elections, the candidates near the top may be described as in an electable position, depending on the number of seats that the party is likely to obtain.) At this stage, however, the preference votes are also taken into account. Any candidate receiving more than one quarter of the threshold on personal preference votes (the 'preference threshold' or voorkeursdrempel, 0.1675% of the total number of valid votes), is considered elected in their own right, leapfrogging candidates higher on the list. In the November 2006 elections, only one candidate received a seat exclusively through preference votes, while 26 other candidates reaching the preference threshold were already elected based on their position on the list. If a candidate cannot take up the position in parliament (e.g., if they become a minister, decide not to enter parliament, or later resign) then the next candidate on the list takes their place.

After all seats are allocated a government is formed, usually based on a majority of the seats. The monarch appoints an informateur, who checks out possible coalitions, and formateur, who leads formation negotiations. At the end of the negotiations, the formateur becomes prime minister. Although the formateur is usually from the largest party in parliament, his nomination can be seen as one of the greatest powers the monarch holds in Dutch politics. All cabinet members must resign from parliament, as the constitution does not allow a cabinet member to hold a seat in the House of Representatives.

There is no threshold for winning a seat in the House of Representatives. In Dutch general election, 1977, for instance, one party gained a seat despite winning only 0.77 percent of the vote. It is theoretically possible for a party to get a seat with as little as 0.66 percent of the vote—roughly one seat for every 50,000 votes. Combined with the nationwide party-list system, it is all but impossible for one party to be able to govern alone, let alone win an outright majority. Between 1891 and 1897, the Liberal Union was the last party to have an absolute majority of seats in the House of Representatives. Since the current party-list proportional representation system was introduced in 1918, no party has even approached the number of seats necessary for an outright majority. All Dutch governments since then have been coalitions of two or more parties.

Current situation

The 2010 Dutch general elections were held on Wednesday, June 9, 2010, and followed the call for new elections after the fall of the Fourth Balkenende cabinet.

The formation talks led to the installation of the conservative-liberal-Christian democratic Rutte cabinet, composed of People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and Christian Democratic Appeal on October 14, 2010. This minority cabinet is supported by the Party for Freedom.

President	Name	Since	Political Party
	Gerdi Verbeet	December 6, 2006	Labour Party

Parliamentary leader	Name	Since	Political Party	Seats	Note(s)
	Stef Blok	October 14, 2010	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy	31
	Job Cohen	June 17, 2010	Labour Party	30	Party leader
	Geert Wilders	November 23, 2006	Party for Freedom	24	Party leader
	Sybrand van Haersma Buma	October 14, 2010	Christian Democratic Appeal	21
	Emile Roemer	March 5, 2010	Socialist Party	15	Party leader
	Alexander Pechtold	November 23, 2006	Democrats 66	10	Party leader
	Jolande Sap	December 17, 2010	GreenLeft	10	Party leader
	Arie Slob	April 28, 2011	ChristianUnion	5	Party leader
	Kees van der Staaij	June 17, 2010	Reformed Political Party	2	Party leader
	Marianne Thieme	November 23, 2006	Party for the Animals	2	Party leader

Netherlands

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of the Netherlands

Kingdom Monarch Queen Beatrix Prince Willem-Alexander (heir apparent) Council of Ministers Minister Plenipotentiary of Aruba Minister Plenipotentiary of Curaçao Minister Plenipotentiary of Sint Maarten Constitution Charter Constitution Wet Algemene Bepalingen Human Rights Cabinet Cabinet list current Prime Minister list current States-General Senate Historic composition House of Representatives Current composition Historic composition Committees Judiciary Supreme Court High Councils of State National Ombudsman Council of State Court of Audit Elections 2011 provincial 2010 general 2009 European 2007 provincial 2006 general 2006 municipal 2005 referendum Political parties Decentralized gov't Provincial politics in the Netherlands Water boards Municipal politics in the Netherlands BES islands Foreign policy Politics of the European Union Foreign relations Missions to the Netherlands Missions of the Netherlands Related subjects Social Economic Council Dutch Central Bank Contemporary history Politicians

Other countries · Atlas Politics portal

 Summary of the 9 June 2010 Dutch House of Representatives election results

List		Party	Political Ideology	Lijsttrekker	Votes	Seats	+/-	Vote %	Seat %
	List	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie, VVD)	Conservative liberalism/Classical liberalism	Mark Rutte	1,929,575	31	+9	20.5	20.7
	List	Labour Party (Partij van de Arbeid, PvdA)	Social Democracy	Job Cohen	1,848,805	30	-3	19.6	20.0
	List	Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV)	Liberal conservatism/National conservatism	Geert Wilders	1,454,493	24	+15	15.5	16.0
	List	Christian Democratic Appeal (Christen-Democratisch Appèl, CDA)	Christian Democracy	Jan Peter Balkenende	1,281,886	21	-20	13.6	14.0
	List	Socialist Party (Socialistische Partij, SP)	Democratic socialism	Emile Roemer	924,696	15	-10	9.8	10.0
	List	Democrats 66 (Democraten 66, D66)	Social liberalism/Radicalism/Progressivism	Alexander Pechtold	654,167	10	+7	7.0	6.7
	List	GreenLeft (GroenLinks, GL)	Green Politics/Progressivism/Activism	Femke Halsema	628,096	10	+3	6.7	6.7
	List	ChristianUnion (ChristenUnie, CU)	Christian democracy/Social conservatism	André Rouvoet	305,094	5	-1	3.2	3.3
	List	Reformed Political Party (Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij, SGP)	Christian right/Social conservatism	Kees van der Staaij	163,581	2	+0	1.7	1.3
	List	Party for the Animals (Partij voor de Dieren, PvdD)	Animal welfare/Animal rights	Marianne Thieme	122,317	2	+0	1.3	1.3
	List	Proud of the Netherlands (Trots Op Nederland, Trots)	Liberal conservatism/National conservatism/Cultural conservatism	Rita Verdonk	52,937	0	+0	0.6	0.0
	List	Party for Human and Spirit (Partij voor Mens en Spirit, MenS)	Spiritual politics	Lea Manders	26,196	0	+0	0.3	0.0
	List	Pirate Party (Piratenpartij)	IP reform, Civil rights, Govt. transparency	Samir Allioui	10,471	0	+0	0.1	0.0
	List	Empty list (List 17 / Feijen List) (Lijst 17 / Lijst Feijen)	Youth rights	Lot Feijen	7,456	0	+0	0.1	0.0
	List	New Netherlands (Nieuw Nederland)		Jan-Frank Koers	2,010	0	+0	0.0	0.0
	List	Partij één		Yesim Candan	2,042	0	+0	0.0	0.0
	List	Heel NL		Daisha de Wijs	1,255	0	+0	0.0	0.0
	List	Empty list (Evangelical Party Netherlands / Laclé List) (Evangelische Partij Nederland / Lijst Laclé)	Evangelicalism	Yvette Laclé	924	0	+0	0.0	0.0
Total					9,416,001	150	0	100.0	100.0
Invalid / Blank					26,976	–	–	0.3	–
Turnout					9,442,977	–	–	75.4	–
Source: "Uitslag verkiezing leden Tweede Kamer van 9 juni 2010". Nederlandse Kiesraad. 15 June 2010. http://www.kiesraad.nl/nl/Actueel/Nieuwsberichten/%282047%29-Actueel-Nieuwsberichten-2010/Uitslag_verkiezing_leden_Tweede_Kamer_van_9_juni_2010.html.  ^a Evangelical Party Netherlands did not register before the deadline and thus participates as an Empty list.

Members of the House of Representatives

• List of members of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands (2010–present)

Historical periods

Main article: Historic composition of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands

Representation per party 1946-

To give an overview of the history of the House of Representatives, the figure on the right shows the seat distribution in the House from the first general elections after WWII (1946) to the current situation. Until 1956, there were 100 seats. This was expanded to 150 seats, which is the current number.

The left-wing parties are towards the bottom, the Christian parties in the centre, with the right-wing parties towards the top. Occasionally, single-issue (or narrow-focus) parties have arisen, and these are shown at the extreme top.

Vertical lines indicate general elections. Although these are generally held every four years, the resulting coalition governments do not always finish their term without a government crisis, which is often followed by fresh elections. Hence the frequent periods shorter than four years.

External links

• (English) Official site
• (Dutch) Official site
• (English) Virtual tour of the houses of parliament
• (Dutch) Seat allocation in the House of Representatives. Click the diagram on the left to see names and photos of all representatives per section.
• (Dutch) Official site for archives since 1995