Chamber of Deputies

The Chamber of Deputies(: Die Kammer, : Kamer van Afgevaardigden, : Chambre des Députés), shorted as the Chamber, is the legislature of Ripuaria.

The Chamber of Deputies is made up of sixty seats. Deputies are elected for terms of five years by single transferable vote in six districts. Voters may rank their candidates in order of preference.

History
The Chamber of Deputies was established in 1950 with the independence of Ripuaria and following the 1950 Ripuarian Elections. Initially the Center Party and the Socialist Party won the majority of the votes and established themselves as the two largest parties in the Chamber supporter by two smaller parties, the Christian Union and the Communist Party respectively. This has led to a left/right separation in the chamber with two leading alliances.

The two parties remained rather strict on economic policies and were stubborn against privatization of public companies which were created following independence to ensure basic needs to the population such as electricity and water. The old ideology of keeping state-owned companies over the years was met with fierce public disagreement and eventually lead to the founding of the liberal Democratic Party which initially focused on privatization of the economy.

Starting from the 1960s the Democratic Party gained momentum as a liberal left-wing alternative with a surge in left-wing politics popularity lead to an 18 year leadership of the Socialist party over the Chamber and Ripuaria. This period is seen as a negotiations battle of coalition agreements between the Socialist Party and the Democratic party which has lead twice to the Chamber dissolving before elections year, once in 1961 and a second time in 1973.

The 1978 election season arrived after a series of scandals involving foreign involvement in local politics in Ripuaria and smear campaigns against socialist and communist parties. At the front of the campaign to end the Socialist Party leadership in the chamber was the newly founded The Right party which at the end of the 1978 elections won 5 seats in addition to gaining 7 more seats to their political ally, the Christian Union. Negotiations between The Right, Christian Union and the Center Party ended in a short lived coalition government which lasted 2 years until the Center Party backed down. Liberal economics which were becoming increasingly popular in the Christian Union and The Right stood in contrast to the more strict Center Party. From here on out the Center Party would become a minor party never reaching the same support as it used to until it was officially dissolved before the 1990 elections. This period between 1978 and 1990 saw privatization of schools and healthcare as the Democratic Party joined the Christian Union in coalition governments.

The modern period of the Chamber sees an increasing number of parties such as The Greens, The Pirate Party and The Democratic Reform Party some of which have their roots in older parties that have dissolved and some come from new political ideologies that surfaced in Ripuaria. Until 2015 the Chamber was lead by the Democratic Party along the left-wing parties but has since flopped back and forth to the Christian Union. As of the 2020 elections, The Democratic Party leads Timo Peter's coalition.

Functions
The function of the Chamber of Deputies is detailed in the Ripuarian Constitution. The purpose of the Chamber of Deputies is to represent the people in the legislative process. Ripuaria is a parliamentary democracy, in which the Chamber is elected by universal suffrage.

All laws must pass the Chamber of Deputies. Laws are passed by absolute majority as long as a quorum of half the deputies are present. Each bill must be submitted to three votes in the Chamber for it to pass as a law. Bills submitted by the executive coalition are allowed to be pass through only two votes. Votes on bills are separated by intervals of one month unless they have been approved in the preliminary vote for a fast passage in which case the interval is reduced to a single day.

Composition
The chamber is composed of sixty members, called deputies. They represent one of the six districts. Each district elects deputies proportional to its population. The largest, Center District elects 24 deputies and the smallest three, Jenaer See District, Ost District and Westen District each elect 5 deputies.

Electoral system
Deputies are elected every five years by universal suffrage with the latest election being held in July 21 2020. Deputies are elected by open-list proportional representation with a single transferable vote ballot, whereby electors rank in their ballots their order of preference for each candidate for the district. Seats are allocated to party candidates by the order of ranked votes each candidate received.

Latest elections
The table below lists the parliamentary factions represented in the current Chamber of Deputies:

Current composition
Government parties are denoted with the letter G, with the Democratic Party holding the office of Prime Minister (Timo Peter). O stands for opposition.