Haßelmann continued: “We want to introduce a bill in mid-January and will campaign for the broadest possible support.” She added: “Our consideration for downsizing the Bundestag is based on personalized proportional representation.” Like SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich, who commented on the planned reform on Friday, Haßelmann did not give a specific date for the submission of the draft law.
With personalized proportional representation, half of the 598 MPs in 299 constituencies are elected with the first vote. The second vote is for the state list of a party – this vote decides on the distribution of seats according to the principle of proportional representation.
If a party receives more direct mandates from first votes than it is entitled to from second votes, the other parties have previously received equalizing mandates in order to restore proportional representation from the second votes. As a result, Parliament has now grown from its actual standard size of 598 MPs to 736 MPs.
The cornerstones for an electoral law reform decided by the “traffic light” factions last summer stipulate that only the proportion of second votes should be decisive for the distribution of mandates. This would mean that some first-place winners in constituencies would no longer be able to enter parliament with a direct mandate.
On Friday, Mützenich told the specialist information service Table.Media: “If the law comes into force, it means for some MPs that they may no longer be there in the next electoral term.” “However, that is not conceivable otherwise if you want to downsize the Bundestag,” said the SPD parliamentary group leader.
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