The Liberals want significantly fewer constituencies. They expect a defeat in Parliament. Therefore, as a precaution, they already have another plan.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - The FDP is pushing ahead with its plan for a smaller state parliament. The Free Democrats have now introduced the corresponding draft law, as parliamentary group leader Hans-Ulrich Rülke announced to the German Press Agency in Stuttgart. "Instead of 154 and potentially over 200 MPs in the future, we want to work towards compliance with the target of 120 MPs." The state parliament must save on itself in times of crisis. The first deliberation on the bill is expected to take place on December 21.
With its initiative, the party wants to prevent parliament from being bloated. Instead of 70, there should only be 38 constituencies in the future, analogous to the federal election. The Liberals fear a further increase in the number of MPs as a result of the electoral law reform passed in the spring.
During the legislative process, the Liberals initially proposed reducing the number of constituencies from 70 to 60. The now more radical step was justified by striving for an "effective reduction" in the number of MPs. From today's perspective, the FDP would also lose seats with the correspondingly reduced number of constituencies.
With the electoral law reform in April, the voting age was lowered to 16 and two-vote voting rights were introduced in Baden-Württemberg. With the first vote, the constituency candidate is elected directly. The second vote goes to a party, which draws up a state list for it - this gives the parties more influence in the choice of candidates. The distribution of seats in the state parliament is determined by the second vote. Depending on the number of direct mandates a party has, a balance and thus more seats in parliament will be necessary in order to achieve a distribution of seats according to the second votes.
The Liberals themselves expect that they will not find a majority for their bill. The party is therefore planning a referendum with the same goal. The course is to be set at the party conference in January.
