Political Chatter

Pete Altmaier (the German Minister of Economics) came out in a opinion piece with the suggestion that Germany needs a smaller Bundestag....in fact, he even wants the number of ministers to be more limited.

It's in a piece on the Rheinishce Post (a German newspaper).

So here's the deal for the suggestion....Altmaier thinks that these recent losses of the CDU and SPD....in state elections....lead back to a failure in the Bundestag and public perceptions.  I might go to some degree to agree with this....but he is perhaps missing the point that both significant parties (CDU and SPD) are currently in a stumbling pattern, and minor parties (AfD, Linke, Greens, and FDP) are captivating the public's imagination.

The number of ministers?  He wants it limited to 15.  Course, he doesn't say why 15 is a magic number.

As for cutting Bundestag representation?  His magic number there is a 40-seat cut by the next election, and every four years after that.....another forty-seat cut.  Why forty, and where would the magic number end up?  Unknown....he leaves that part as well.

But then he came to an interesting suggestion....he wants to cut all these state elections down.....concentrated.  There are sixteen German states, with these dates rolling around every five years.  The national election?  It's set for every four years.  He is suggesting that these all occur maybe in one Sunday per year, but it's not that clear. 

Acceptance of this?  Zero-percent.  Oh, there is agreement that the current number of 709 seats in the Bundestag is too many.  Merkel is pursuing some cut there already....but just in the range of thirty to forty.  The odd thing here....there are 401 districts (counties) in Germany, so you'd think that there would be roughly 401 seats in the Bundestag.  Odds of even getting down to 500 seats?  Pretty near zero....none of the parties would pursue fewer seats to that extreme.

I could see a case where each district sends a Representative to Berlin from the national election, and each state (16) gets one extra Representative from the winning party of the state election....meaning 417, with the Chancellor as a 'freebie', meaning 418 total. 

As for concentrating the voting days per year?  There's a problem here in that states (even the federal government) can fail, and in that case....you are forced into another election (out of cycle), so no one wants to pursue real changes. 

Whether anyone wants to admit it or not....there is a severe weakness in having three elections in a three month period.  You could have the winner of election number one....trigger higher numbers in election number two, and even higher numbers in election number three.  For the CDU and SPD....that is a major issue for them. 

So it's a lot of hot air by Altmaier?  More or less.  It just generates discussion and some SPD/CDU folks talking in the shadows that something has to occur.