Referendum on Stuttgart 21
The referendum on Stuttgart 21 in the state of Baden-Württemberg took place on November 27, 2011. The subject of the referendum was the state government's bill “S 21-Kündigungsgesetz”, which provided for the withdrawal of the state's participation in the project financing and which had already been rejected by the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg . A majority of 58.9 percent of the valid votes spoke out against the bill and thus in favor of maintaining state funding for the project.
Political background
In their coalition agreement, after the state elections in March 2011, the Greens and the SPD agreed to hold a referendum on the Stuttgart 21 project and to implement the new Wendlingen – Ulm line in any case.
At the end of July 2011, a draft, the "Act on the exercise of termination rights in the contractual agreements for the Stuttgart 21 rail project (S 21 termination law)", was submitted, which would have obliged the state government to grant termination rights in the contractual agreements with financial obligations of the State of Baden-Württemberg for the Stuttgart 21 rail project. Since only the Greens were against Stuttgart 21 of the parties represented in parliament, the law was, as expected, rejected in the state parliament on September 28, 2011. This opened up the possibility of a referendum. The legal basis was the law on plebiscites and referendums (Popular Voting Act - VAbstG) in the version published on February 27, 1984.
When voting, voters could either vote “yes” or “no”. The dismissal law in Stuttgart 21 would have been adopted if the majority of the citizens voting - at least one third of all eligible voters (which corresponded to a quorum of around 2.5 million eligible voters) - had voted “yes”.
Legal admissibility
An expert opinion commissioned by the previous state government by the former constitutional judge Paul Kirchhof and the lawyer Klaus-Peter Dolde came to the conclusion in October 2010 that a referendum contradicts Article 60, Paragraph 6 of the state constitution: There is no referendum on tax laws, salary laws and the state budget law. In Kirchhof and Umde's view, this provision should be “interpreted broadly” and affects all laws that force a reorganization of the entire budget. Representatives of the SPD, on the other hand, argued that the budget was not affected by the referendum, or that with this point of view “a vote on any law that costs money would be excluded”.
The Federal Constitutional Court did not accept a constitutional complaint against the referendum with a decision published on November 23, 2011 for two reasons: 1. The constitutional complaint could only assert a violation of fundamental rights and rights equivalent to fundamental rights under the Basic Law, but not an incompatibility with the state constitution (ie specifically: the Federal Constitutional Court does not have to decide on the interpretation of Art. 60 of the Baden-Württemberg state constitution). 2. If a violation of the Basic Law is asserted, the constitutional complaint is inadmissible "because the law has not yet been passed, let alone promulgated".
Furthermore, it was argued in advance that the financing agreement for Stuttgart 21 could not be terminated as it did not contain a termination clause. Dolde stated that the Administrative Procedure Act permits the termination of public law contracts in the event of a significant change in circumstances, but that actively bringing about such a change in circumstances violates the principle of good faith . SPD experts countered that a change of government or a referendum could represent just such a change in circumstances.
Eligible voters and turnout
7.6 million people from a total of around 10.7 million inhabitants of the state of Baden-Württemberg were entitled to vote. Votes were taken in 35 rural and nine urban districts .
The turnout was 48.3 percent, 12.1 percentage points lower than in the state elections in Baden-Württemberg on March 27, 2011 . The lowest was the participation in the Baden Oberrheingraben in Mannheim , district of Rastatt , Pforzheim , Ortenaukreis and district Loerrach , highest in Stuttgart and the surrounding area ( Esslingen district , the district of Ludwigsburg , Rems-Murr-Kreis ). The highest voter turnout was in the municipality of Seekirch in the district of Biberach with 96.4 percent, the lowest in the municipality of Hügelsheim with 25.7 percent.
Election result
The bill was rejected with 58.9 percent of the votes (“No”). Thus, the majority of the participants decided against the obligation of the state government to exercise termination rights to dissolve the contractual agreements with financing obligations of the state with regard to the Stuttgart 21 rail project.
.jpg)
| City district / district | Participation | Proportion of valid votes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | No | ||
| Alb-Danube district | 55.2 | 23.0 | 77.0 |
| Baden-Baden (city) | 38.9 | 46.4 | 53.6 |
| Biberach | 50.7 | 24.5 | 75.5 |
| Boeblingen | 59.0 | 35.7 | 64.3 |
| Lake Constance district | 47.1 | 42.4 | 57.6 |
| Breisgau-Upper Black Forest | 43.4 | 51.5 | 48.5 |
| Calw | 52.6 | 32.6 | 67.4 |
| Emmendingen | 41.0 | 54.9 | 45.1 |
| Enzkreis | 50.7 | 36.8 | 63.2 |
| Esslingen | 62.3 | 39.6 | 60.4 |
| Freiburg im Breisgau (city) | 44.6 | 66.5 | 33.5 |
| Freudenstadt | 48.3 | 31.6 | 68.4 |
| Goeppingen | 53.7 | 37.0 | 63.0 |
| Heidelberg (city) | 41.9 | 58.0 | 42.0 |
| Heidenheim | 45.9 | 34.4 | 65.6 |
| Heilbronn (country) | 47.2 | 36.5 | 63.5 |
| Heilbronn (city) | 41.4 | 41.3 | 58.7 |
| Hohenlohe district | 44.8 | 35.8 | 64.2 |
| Karlsruhe (State) | 42.2 | 42.0 | 58.0 |
| Karlsruhe (city) | 40.8 | 53.6 | 46.4 |
| Constancy | 43.6 | 49.8 | 50.2 |
| Loerrach | 37.7 | 53.6 | 46.4 |
| Ludwigsburg | 60.6 | 38.4 | 61.6 |
| Main-Tauber district | 40.5 | 37.7 | 62.3 |
| Mannheim (city) | 33.3 | 57.2 | 42.8 |
| Neckar-Odenwald district | 38.4 | 35.8 | 64.2 |
| Ortenau district | 37.6 | 44.0 | 56.0 |
| Ostalbkreis | 49.7 | 31.9 | 68.1 |
| Pforzheim (city) | 37.1 | 40.9 | 59.1 |
| Rastatt | 36.2 | 45.2 | 54.8 |
| Ravensburg | 45.8 | 39.7 | 60.3 |
| Rems-Murr district | 60.3 | 36.5 | 63.5 |
| Reutlingen | 54.2 | 37.3 | 62.7 |
| Rhein-Neckar district | 38.9 | 48.6 | 51.4 |
| Rottweil | 47.9 | 35.0 | 65.0 |
| Schwäbisch Hall | 45.3 | 43.1 | 56.9 |
| Schwarzwald-Baar district | 41.2 | 41.3 | 58.7 |
| Sigmaringen | 47.6 | 32.5 | 67.5 |
| Stuttgart (city) | 67.8 | 47.1 | 52.9 |
| Tübingen | 58.7 | 47.8 | 52.2 |
| Tuttlingen | 45.7 | 31.8 | 68.2 |
| Ulm (city) | 52.1 | 30.9 | 69.1 |
| Waldshut | 39.3 | 44.2 | 55.8 |
| Zollernalb district | 47.7 | 33.4 | 66.6 |
| State of Baden-Württemberg | 48.3 | 41.1 | 58.9 |
A majority voted for the law in only seven out of 44 urban and rural districts, and the quorum was nowhere achieved.
At the community level, the law was adopted in 104 of 1101 communities, most clearly in the city of Freiburg im Breisgau. The quorum was met in four municipalities: in Mühlhausen im Täle , Sulzburg , Tübingen and Vörstetten .
Survey in advance
A representative survey by the opinion research institute Infratest dimap on behalf of the Stuttgarter Zeitung , Südwestrundfunk , Bertelsmann Stiftung and the University of Stuttgart showed in the week before the referendum that 55 percent would vote against the termination of the financing agreement.
literature
- State capital Stuttgart (Ed.): The referendum on November 27, 2011 in Stuttgart . (Series Statistics and Information Management Special Issues , Volume 2/2011).
Web links
- Communication from the country after the referendum
- State capital Stuttgart - referendum
- Referendum Act (VAbstG) of the state of Baden-Württemberg
- Final results , Baden-Württemberg State Statistical Office
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, SPD (ed.): The change begins. Coalition agreement between BÜNDNIS 90 / DIE GRÜNEN and the SPD Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg 2011 - 2016 , p. 30 f. ( PDF file , 0.9 MB).
- ↑ State Ministry of Baden-Württemberg (ed.): State government releases draft S 21 - Kündigungsgesetz for hearing . Stuttgart, July 26, 2011, accessed on August 12, 2011.
- ^ State government of Baden-Württemberg: Law on the exercise of termination rights in the contractual agreements for the Stuttgart 21 rail project (S 21 - Termination Act) . Draft as of July 25, 2011 ( PDF file ).
- ↑ State Parliament of Baden-Württemberg: Resolutions of the 13th plenary session on September 28, 2011
- ↑ State constitution article 60 [1]
- ↑ a b Mission accomplished , the daily newspaper , article from October 5, 2010
- ↑ Unconstitutional referendum , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , article from October 6, 2010
- ↑ Expert opinion stands against expert opinion , Stuttgarter Zeitung , article from October 5, 2010
- ↑ BVerfG, 2 BvR 2333/11 of November 21, 2011
- ↑ Before the referendum in Baden-Württemberg on November 27, 2011: A good 7.6 million eligible voters called to cast their votes ( memento of the original from July 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Statistisches Landesamt Baden-Württemberg, from November 16, 2011, accessed on November 27, 2011
- ↑ District Administrator Reumann: No reason for cheers ( Memento from November 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated November 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated November 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ State Statistical Office Baden-Württemberg : Results of the referendum in the respective urban and rural districts ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Majority wants to vote for Stuttgart 21 in: Stuttgarter Zeitung (online) of November 17, 2011
