I want to be like Klaus Wowereit. He's a Social Democrat. He's super cool: artsy black-and-white photo before Berlin's Rotes Rathaus ("Red Town Hall"), wistful yet confident gaze (toward Alexanderplatz?). Look at all those smiling people, happy to be talking to the MAN himself. And his website is available in German, English and Turkish. Cool.

Wowereit is also a cool operator, and his actions in the Bundesrat, the upper house of Germany's parliament, are at the heart of a constitutional controversy that will be before the German Constitutional Court this week. The Tagesspiegel (Berlin) has a story on the case today. You can also read a good account of the story in an April edition of "Migration News" from UC-Davis, here. The German Embassy's account of the controversy is available here.

Back in March, the Bundesrat was voting on a controversial new immigration law. The votes were split on party lines: the SPD liked the law, which they wrote, because it loosened some restraints on immigrants seeking permanent residency (especially university-educated immigrants), because it relaxed the asylum procedure, and, in general, because the SPD likes to be tolerant of immigrants. The opposition CDU/CSU argued that the new rules would increase unemployment among Germans and lead to higher costs for welfare programs. The bill passed the lower house on March 1 and went to the upper house on March 22. Near the end of the tally, the votes were split. It was clear that the success of the bill depended on the vote from the last delegation, from the German state of Brandenburg. But Brandenburg's government was at that time a "big coaltion" of both the SPD and the CDU, so their delegation consisted of a member from each party. Seemed like a deadlock.

The Bundesrat is like the U.S. Senate, but composed of governors and ministers from each province. According to the German Constitution (Article 51), delegations from each state must cast a unanimous vote. On May 22, however, the delegation from Brandenburg was split along party lines. Klaus Wowereit was presiding as President of the Bundesrat. There was a voice vote. Governor Manfred Stolpe (SPD) voted "yes," while State Interior Minister Jörg Schönbohm (CDU) voted "no." Wowereit asked Stolpe to speak for the state of Brandenburg; as governor of the state, he was technically the higher-ranking official within the state government, although the Constitution does not rank members of the delegation. Stolpe replied again, "yes." Schönbohm objected: "You know my position (Auffassung), Mr. President."

Wowereit declared that Brandenburg had voted "yes" and that the measure had passed. Cries of disbelief arose from the CDU/CSU. Roland Koch (yes, that Roland Koch) from Hessen accused Wowereit of being ignorant of the Constitution. The conservatives then left the room in protest.

Germany's President Johannes Rau signed the bill in June, declaring that the constitutional objections raised by the conservatives were not serious. In turn, the conservatives asked the Constitutional Court to declare the law invalid.

I admit my complete astonishment at this case. The Tagesspiegel seems to believe that the Court will declare the law unconstitutional because of the procedure used by Wowereit. His actions seem to have been in plain violation of the (rather sparse) procedures outlined for voting in the Bundesrat. Article 51 clearly mandates unanimity. One might claim that there was really no "division" since Stolpe spoke for the delegation (can you say, "payroll tax isn't a 'tax'"?). But that would seem to be absurd. Hmmm.

Wowereit wants looser immigration rules. One can imagine that the new law would benefit the thousands of ethnic Turks who live in Berlin, which has the world's largest community of Turks outside of Turkey. Was Wowereit positioning himself as a friend of immigration, even at the cost of creating a constitutional controversy? Maybe. This is what hardball, entrepreneurial politics looks like in a state with a strong constitutional court.