The Reichstag standing-orders change, 23 March 1933 - absent deputies counted as present

[Report #202] **In plain terms:** before the famous vote, the Reichstag changed its own house rules so that members who did not turn up counted as if they had, with the chairman alone deciding who was absent without excuse. The historian who worked through the cabinet minutes says this, not the Enabling Act, is where the constitution was abandoned. THE PROBLEM IT SOLVED FOR THE GOVERNMENT. A constitutional amendment required two thirds of the legally elected members to be PRESENT. With the KPD deputies arrested, a walkout by the SPD and the Zentrum - or even by the Bayerische Volkspartei alone - would have left the house unable to transact. Frick raised this in cabinet on 15 March; Goering's recorded answer was that the majority could be had by having some Social Democrats removed from the chamber, which Schneider points out would have made the quorum problem worse, not better. THE DEVICE, from Schneider 1953. At the second cabinet discussion on 20 March Frick brought what Schneider calls a 'Patentloesung' - a patent solution: amend the standing orders so that members 'die in der Sitzung unentschuldigt fehlten oder von der Teilnahme an der Sitzung ausgeschlossen werden koennten' were to count as present, with the Reichstag President alone deciding whether someone was absent without excuse. Schneider's summary of what that amounted to, verbatim: 'die nicht erscheinenden Abgeordneten als anwesend zu fingieren' - to treat the deputies who did not appear as present, by fiction. 'Mochten also mehr als 250 Mitglieder des Reichstages den Sitzungen fernbleiben, so wurde doch infolge der Fiktion ihrer Anwesenheit die Beschlussfaehigkeit des Hauses nicht in Frage gestellt.' WHO OBJECTED: only the SPD, which Schneider says correctly identified the undisguised purpose as preventing obstruction. The National Socialists replied that a constitutional amendment by way of a standing-orders change 'gar nicht in Frage kommen koenne'. The Zentrum voted for it on the ground that whether it was a constitutional amendment would be decided elsewhere. SCHNEIDER'S VERDICT, verbatim, which is why this record exists as its own node: 'Eigentlich hat der Reichstag nicht erst durch die Annahme des Ermaechtigungsgesetzes, sondern schon durch die Annahme dieser Geschaeftsordnungsaenderung den Gedanken der parlamentarischen Demokratie preisgegeben und den Boden der Verfassung von Weimar verlassen.' The Reichstag gave up the idea of parliamentary democracy and left the ground of the Weimar constitution not with the Enabling Act but already with the adoption of that change to its standing orders. He adds that any standing-order provision replacing the constitution's concept of presence with a fiction violated Article 76, since 'Anwesend im Sinne des Art. 76 waren selbstverstaendlich nur die Abgeordneten, die sich tatsaechlich an der Abstimmung beteiligten.' ENGINE READING, offered as a reading and not a verdict: Concept #146 locates the apex not in an identity but in 'whoever authors the carve-out list'. Here the author of the rule and the sole judge of its application are the same office, and the office is the chair of the body being bypassed. Held; name no holder.