Fractions

The individual parliamentary groups meet, independently of each other, as a rule twice before each county council meeting. In the faction meetings, all questions and problems that are on the agenda of the district council meeting are discussed. The recommendations prepared by the working groups and working parties of the parliamentary groups as well as elaborations of the administration serve as a basis for the discussion. In these, some members of the parliamentary groups deal particularly intensively with the items under discussion, for the discussion of which they have the necessary expertise and specialist knowledge. What is sought is expert knowledge and factual relevance. A vote is then taken on how the respective parliamentary group intends to act on the decisions to be made in the district council.

Members of parliament are free to form their own opinions, since the parliamentary groups are as democratically organized as our entire community life. Factional discipline, on the other hand, is required. Members of the parliamentary groups are not elected because of their individual political views, but above all because of the political line that their party represents. The difficult, contentious formation of wills in a parliamentary group, which often can only be ended by voting, is not only in a party's own interest, but also in the interest of the work of the whole parliament, which otherwise could quarrel individualistically. Random decisions would be the rule.

This form of opinion-forming within the parliamentary groups is also chosen because no parliamentary group member can think himself into all the questions and problems he has to help decide to such an extent that he is familiar with the matter down to the smallest detail. Each of them has to concentrate on one area of expertise and rely on the judgment of his or her colleagues who are experts in other areas. The voluntary adoption of the opinion of the parliamentary group does not run counter to the independence of a member of the district council, who must exercise her/his activity according to her/his free conviction determined only by consideration for the common good.