The electoral law reform of the Baden-Württemberg state parliament could lead to an increase in parliament and to considerable additional costs for the citizens per legislative period.

This emerges from a statement by the political scientist Joachim Behnke (Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen) and from calculations by the FDP member of the state parliament Stephen Brauer.

"Right now, when we are facing major economic problems and there is a struggle in Berlin to reduce the size of the Bundestag, the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg should be bloated," said the FDP politician, whose parliamentary group with the votes of the Greens, CDU and had only partially approved the reform passed by the SPD.

Ruediger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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In April, the green-black government majority, with the votes of the SPD, abolished one-vote voting rights and replaced them with second-vote voting rights with a closed state list.

In the future, 70 members of the state parliament will be directly elected with a first vote, and 50 further mandates will be assigned by state list.

The aim of the reform is to make the state parliament more diverse, so that in future it will include more women and more MPs from immigrant families.

On behalf of the state parliament's internal affairs committee, political scientist Behnke has now calculated the possible effects of the reform based on the federal election result for Baden-Württemberg from September 2021. He comes to the conclusion that such an election result - converted to the new two-vote right to vote - would mean a state parliament with 216 members would lead.

The regular size of the state parliament is 120 seats.

According to Behnke, with a share of 28.1 percent of the vote, the CDU would be entitled to 27 overhang mandates.

So far there have been compensatory mandates in Stuttgart, which are calculated separately for the parties that do not obtain a direct mandate in the four administrative districts;

the current state parliament has a total of 154 members.

In the future there will be overhang mandates that are determined nationwide.

Behnke writes in his statement: "With the current electoral system in Baden-Württemberg, in view of the structure of the party system that is emerging, more than 180 seats can be expected in future elections." The problem of parliamentary enlargement will not be solved.

The scientist proposes reducing the number of direct election mandates from 70 to 45.

According to the calculations of the FDP member of parliament Breuer, 62 additional members of the state parliament would cost 125.5 million euros in one legislative period.

Greens, CDU and SPD disagree

Andreas Schwarz (Greens), chairman of the largest parliamentary group with 58 members of parliament, called the scientist's calculations "pure speculation".

The introduction of the second vote could change voting behavior, which could also result in overhang mandates.

"Honestly, no one can seriously predict how voting behavior will change," Schwarz told the FAZ.

In the “second step”, the green-black coalition will tackle constituency reform.

If that had become part of the current reform, it would have unnecessarily delayed the electoral reform, according to Schwarz.

CDU parliamentary group leader Manuel Hagel criticized the political scientist's calculations and recalled the agreed review of the constituencies.

"Transferring the results of the most recent federal election to calculations of the new state electoral law is a comparison in which apples are compared with oranges," Hagel told the FAZ 154 MPs, according to the CDU politician.

The “size ratios of the constituencies to each other from a constitutional perspective” will soon be reviewed and adjusted if necessary.

Sascha Binder, the deputy SPD parliamentary group leader, said that the size of the state parliament depends largely on the voting behavior of the citizens.

"We have 70 constituencies, but at the same time we have a significant increase in population."