Talk:Bundestag

?

Why so much detail on the 11th term (1987 thru 1990)? MartinHH 22:34, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

How about listing the number of seats of each term, names of the president and vice-presidents, etc. as separate articles, say for instance "Bundestag,_11th_term_(1987-1990)" MartinHH 22:34, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The eagle coat-of-arms accompanying the article shows the eagle that is used for Germany in general. There is a special "fat hen" version of the eagle that is used on the letterhead of members of the Bundestag, hung in the parliamentary chamber, etc, and is especially associated with the Bundestag. But I don't know how to deal with graphics here. http://www.trendelkamp.com/adler.html

or http://www.bundestag.de should help show what I mean, though.  Bhuck 15:20, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Name of article

According to the naming conventions, the file should be named Federal Diet. Gangulf 18:56, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Gangulf/Wilfried Derksen,

I've moved this article to Bundestag_(Germany) for the same reasons I give on Talk:Bundesrat of Germany: (I) you should have allowed a reasonable amount of time for people to register objections to your proposal before going ahead with the move. (ii) I think you misunderstand Wikipedia naming conventions. The convention is usually to use the most commonly used name. Also, words like Tsar and Bundestag that have been absorbed into the English language are used as if they were English words.

Of course as far as i am aware there is only one Bundestag so the "(Germany)" disambiguation is redundant. As soon as possible someone with administrator access should move this article back to Bundestag until a consensus is reached to move it elsewhere.

Iota 03:44, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I meant the convention listed at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English): That means: names in the English translation and the original native name is placed on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the English form. Rationale and specifics. The debate can be on the question if Bundestag is more commonly used in English than the translation. Gangulf 21:39, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sure. Going on my own experience Bundestag is almost universally used in English media while terms like federal assembly and federal diet are rare. This is hard to prove but (for what it's worth) Google (restricted to English language pages) turns up far more hits for Bundestag. Also the English language version of the official webpage of the Bundestag uses the German term, while, for example, the presidential webpage uses Federal President rather than Bundespräsident. Iota 19:01, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK Gangulf 10:59, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Constituency?

Does anyone else think that this section of the article

"One striking difference when comparing the Bundestag with the U.S. Congress is the lack of time spent on serving constituents in Germany. In part, that difference results from the fact that only 50 percent of Bundestag deputies are directly elected to represent a specific geographic district; the other half are elected as party representatives (see below). The political parties are thus of great importance in Germany's electoral system, and many voters tend not to see the candidates as autonomous political personalities but rather as agents of the party. Interestingly, constituent service seems not to be perceived, either by the electorate or by the representatives, as a critical function of the legislator. A practical constraint on the expansion of constituent service is the limited personal staff of Bundestag deputies."

needs some editing? I refer specifically to comments such as "lack of time spent on serving constituents" - it could easily be argued that the method of serving constituents is the point of contrast, rather than its presence or absence (i.e. as a collective rather than in terms of geographic region) - and "Interestingly, constituent service seems not to be perceived, either by the electorate or by the representatives, as a critical function of the legislator." Again, party representatives are elected to represent the German people as a whole, who are therefore their constituents. The implication (probably unintentional!) that a representative who is not directly elected by a specific region does not engage in constituent service seems inaccurate, because it's predicated on the definition of a constituency only as a group that constitutes a geographic location, rather than a political or ideological one.

Ziggurat 03:20, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

In the end -- the 50% is not true. Our german election system works that way: You have a primary vote for the direct candidate and a second vote for the list vote. The percentage and the power in the parliament is only estimated by the list vote (for the different parties). So if you win your district you go into parliament, but also canditates from the parties list (by nomination order) go into parliament until the percentage of the list vote is fullfilled (the so called Überhangsmandate). Due to this principle the number of members differs from vote to vote. So if you do a good job and the people vote for you (but maybe your party not), you go into parliament. But also small parties (like Green party or liberals) have a chance to go into parliament without winning a single district. You only have to get over 5% of the votes in list vote. To make the whole thing more complicated ... if you win a direct mandate you went into parliament (also if your party don't get 5%). But if your party wins 3 direct mandates you go into parliament with your percentage (even if your party is below 5% -- as far i can remeber this was only the case with the former communist party SED - now PDS). So sorry for my bad english, I hope somebody get the information and can put it into the article. --62.178.221.119 00:42, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

So due my bad english I try it as programmer

Direct Vote: If win your district (first vote), you are member of parliament

Your party has >= 5% list votes (second vote) or at least 3 districts, your party is in parliament with the percentage of the second vote.--62.178.221.119 00:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I still don't get it though. As I understand it, there are sixteen Länder. And each Lander is split into many "constituencies". But then the article says:

"The 598 seats are distributed among the parties that have gained more than 5% of the second votes or at least 3 direct mandates. Each of these parties is allocated seats in the Bundestag in proportion to the number of votes it has received (Largest remainder method).

When the total number of mandates gained by a party has been determined, they are distributed between the Land lists. The distribution of seats between the parties in each Land is proportional to the second vote results: (Largest remainder method)."

So is there a fixed number of seats for each Land (the sum of which is 299)( I mean : a number determined BEFORE the start of the elections?) Evilbu 14:11, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

No, only the number of constituencies for each Land is fixed (it's proportional to the number of inhabitants of the Lands). The above sentence should read: "The distribution of the seats of any one party to the 16 Lands is proportional to that party's second vote results in the Lands (Largest remainder method)." So the number of seats for each Land is essentially proportional to the number of actual voters in that Land, which is not known before the elections.--129.70.14.128 (talk) 17:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Categorization

I took the liberty to remove a few of the categories that this article was placed into.

Removed categories:

• Category:Political science terms: "Bundestag" is not a political science term such as Realpolitik or Nation-state are (all found under that category). Since "Bundestag" is only ever used to refer to the German legislature, it's more like a proper noun similar to the "United States House of Representatives" or the "British House of Commons".

• Category:German loanwords: "Bundestag" is only ever used to refer to the German legislature. Until it is used to refer to something else, it is merely a German word used in the English language when talking about that specific meaning. As Loanword suggests, for a word to be a loan word, it must have a somewhat common use within its respective field (e.g. law, political science, etc.) which "Bundestag" does not.

• Category:Germany: Both Category:Government of Germany and Category:Politics of Germany are sub-categories of Category:Germany so there's no need to explicitly add Category:Germany to the article.

• Category:Government of Germany: Category:Legislative Branch of the German Government is a sub-category of Government of Germany so there's no need to add this category explicitly.

• Category:German law: The "Bundestag", while originator of most positive federal law in Germany, is not actually part of the German law. For any legislation to become law, the Bundestag is only one part in a complex play between several constitutional institutions. How out of place "Bundestag" as an article is within that category is especially apparent when looking at the other articles within Category:German law.

sebmol 18:45, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Current situation

One MP left the Group of the Left Party an is now independent (Winkelmeier). Could anyone more experienced than me change the graphics? Thanks.--62.246.31.81 18:18, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Anyone out there?--62.246.67.188 14:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

613 Abgeordnete since July 1st

Yep, no longer 614. Matthias Wissmann (CDU/CSU Fraktion) has resigned an there's no possible replacement per overhang seats in Baden-Württemberg: see [1] and [2]. I have edited List of Bundestag Members, but I think we need a major review of all Bundestag-related articles. --Neigel von Teighen 13:34, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

president

The name of the first president is wrong ! It was Erich Köhler. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.34.252.245 (talk) 10:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)