The German Bundesrat (, ) is a legislative body that represents the sixteen Länder (federated states) of Germany at the federal level (German: Bundesebene). The Bundesrat meets at the former Prussian House of Lords in Berlin. Its second seat is located in the former West German capital of Bonn.
The Bundesrat participates in legislation, alongside the Bundestag consisting of directly elected representatives of the German people. Laws that affect state powers, and all constitutional changes, need the consent of both houses. For its somewhat similar function, the Bundesrat is sometimes (controversially) described as an upper house of parliament along the lines of the United States Senate, the Canadian Senate, and the British House of Lords.
Bundesrat was the name of similar bodies in the North German Confederation (1867) and the German Empire (1871). Its predecessor in the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) was the Reichsrat.
The political makeup of the Bundesrat is affected by changes in power in the states of Germany, and thus by elections in each state. Each state delegation in the Bundesrat is essentially a representation of the state government and reflects the political makeup of the ruling majority or plurality of each state legislature (including coalitions). Thus the Bundesrat is a continuous body and has no legislative periods. For organizational reasons, the Bundesrat structures its legislative calendar in years of business (Geschäftsjahre), beginning each year on 1 November. Each year of business is congruous with the one-year-term of the presidium. The sessions have been counted continuously since the first session on 7 September 1949. The Bundesrat's 1000th session, which was opened by a speech held by President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier, took place on 12 February 2021.
History
German Confederation
The historical predecessor of the Bundesrat was the Federal Convention (Confederate Diet) of the German Confederation (1815–1848, 1850/1851–1866). That Federal Convention consisted of the representatives of the member states. The first basic law (Bundesakte) of the German Confederation listed how many votes a member state had, for two different formations of the diet. The diet was the only organ – there was no division of powers. The diet was chaired by the Austrian representative.
In the revolution of 1848 the Bundestag transferred its powers to the Imperial Regent and was reactivated only in 1850/1851. Several other attempts to reform the Confederation involved retaining the Bundestag and adding a parliament and a court. One of these attempts, the proposed Reform Act of 1863, had introduced the term Bundesrath. With the dissolution of the Confederation in August 1866, the diet and the federal law ended.
Bundesrat 1867–1918
On July 1, 1867, the North German Confederation was established as a confederal state. The Reichstag, elected by the North German men, was one legislative body. The other one was the Bundesrath (old spelling). This organ was expressly modelled after the old diet. When the Confederation was transformed and renamed Deutsches Reich (German Empire) in 1871, the Bundesrat kept its name.
Whilst appointed by state governments just as today, the delegates of the original Bundesrat—as those of the Reichsrat—were usually high-ranking civil servants, not cabinet members. The original Bundesrat was very powerful; every bill needed its consent, equaling it to the popularly elected Reichstag. It could also, with the Emperor's agreement, dissolve the Reichstag.
Weimar Republic
In the revolution of 1918, the revolutionary organ ("Council of People's Representatives") limited the power of the Bundesrat to its administrative functions. A (committee of states) accompanied the reform of Germany but had no official role in installing the new constitution. Under that Weimar Constitution, August 1, 1919, it was replaced by the (1919–1934).
The of the Weimar Republic (1919–1934) had considerably less influence, since it could only veto bills—and even then be overruled by the . However, overruling the needed a majority of two-thirds in the , which consisted of many parties differing in opinion. So, in most cases, bills vetoed by the failed due to the lack of unity among the 's constituent parties. The was abolished by the "Law on the Abolition of the Reichsrat" on 14 February 1934, roughly a year after Hitler had come to power.