The Senate ( or simply ' , literally "First Chamber of the States General", or sometimes ' ) is the

upper house An upper house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house.''Bicameralism'' (1997) by George Tsebelis The house formally designated as the upper house is usually smaller and often has more restric ...

of the States General, the legislature of the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. Its 75 members are elected on lists by the members of the twelve States-Provincial and four electoral colleges for the Senate every four years, within three months of the provincial elections. All provinces and colleges have different electoral weight depending on their population. Members of the Senate tend to be veteran or part-time politicians at the national level, often having other roles. They receive an allowance which is about a quarter of the salary of the members of the lower house. Unlike the politically more significant

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

, it meets only once a week. It has the right to accept or reject legislative proposals but not to amend them or to initiate legislation. Directly after a bill has been passed by the House of Representatives, it is sent to the Senate and is submitted to a parliamentary committee. The committee decides whether the bill can be immediately put on the agenda of the full chamber or if there should first be preparatory study of the bill. If a bill is immediately put on the agenda of the full chamber, it is passed as a formality without a debate.

Name

Although this body is called the "Senate" in English, this is not a direct translation of its official Dutch name, the "First Chamber of the States General" or, in short, the "First Chamber". Nevertheless, and in contrast to the Second Chamber, the name ''Senaat'' is also used often in the media. "Member of the First Chamber" (''Eerste Kamerlid''), "member of the Senate" (''senaatslid'') or "senator" (''senator'') are used, although the first one is the official and most used term.

History

Binnenhof @ Centrum @ The Hague (20388154990)

The first constitution of the modern Netherlands, passed in 1814, re-established a unicameral States General. As it became clear that the former

Southern Netherlands The Southern Netherlands, also called the Catholic Netherlands, were the parts of the Low Countries belonging to the Holy Roman Empire which were at first largely controlled by Habsburg Spain (Spanish Netherlands, 1556–1714) and later by the A ...

would be added to the new

United Kingdom of the Netherlands The United Kingdom of the Netherlands ( nl, Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden; french: Royaume uni des Pays-Bas) is the unofficial name given to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as it existed between 1815 and 1839. The United Netherlands was cr ...

, a newly instituted constitutional commission was tasked with drafting a new constitution. The southern members of the constitutional commission pressed for a bicameral system because of the conviction that their nobility should be given a place in the legislature. While the northern members were not enthusiastic about the proposal, they agreed under the condition that nobility would not be a requirement for membership. The new constitution, which came into effect on 24 August 1815, thus provided for a Senate consisting of forty to sixty members appointed by the king for life. The list of the first appointees was published on 16 September 1815 and the newly appointed chamber was first assembled on 21 September 1815 in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

in a joint assembly with the House of Representatives. In its early years, the Senate functioned as a bulwark of the Crown (the king and his ministers). Its members, appointed by the king from among the "most significant of the country", were mostly confidants of the king who were often called upon to veto bills that displeased him. Such bills were usually private members' bills from the House of Representatives. The Senate remained in existence after the independence of

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

in 1830, although its membership was halved to no fewer than twenty and no more than thirty members. Much changed in the political sphere as a result of the

Constitutional Reform of 1848 The Constitutional Reform of 1848 (Dutch: ''Grondwetsherziening van 1848'') laid the basis for the present system of parliamentary democracy in the Netherlands. It is often described as the original version of the Dutch Constitution that is still ...

, which introduced direct elections for the House of Representatives, which until then had been elected by the States-Provincial. The constitutional commission, under the chairmanship of

Johan Rudolph Thorbecke Johan Rudolph Thorbecke (14 January 1798 – 4 June 1872) was a Dutch liberal statesman, one of the most important Dutch politicians of the 19th century. Thorbecke is best known for heading the commission that drafted the revision of the Cons ...

, intended for the Senate to be directly elected as well, but the predominantly conservative House of Representatives blocked this, fearing that the two chambers would be too similar. Additionally, senators were expected to judge bills with more independence and distance from daily politics, as a "chambre de reflection", which was deemed impossible when they would be forced to campaign for direct election. It was therefore decided that the Senate would henceforth be elected by the States-Provincial. Its 39 seats were distributed among the provinces degressively proportional to population, and a third of its members would be elected for 9-year terms every three years using a majoritarian system. The position of the Senate and the criteria governing eligibility to stand for election were also among the changes. Monitoring the quality of legislation gradually came to be the main function of the Senate after 1848. The existence and functioning of the Senate have been criticised throughout history, manifested in reports of state commissions, government proposals and private bills calling for reform or abolition of the Senate. Abolition of the Senate was attempted by social democrats and progressive liberals in 1903, and again after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, but these proposals could not count on sufficient support. However, reform came in 1922, five years after a constitutional amendment that introduced universal male suffrage and proportional representation to the House of Representatives. The constitutional amendment of 1922 brought proportional representation to the Senate as well. Rather than the seats being distributed among the provinces, the provinces were now organised into four groups of roughly equal population, each electing twelve or thirteen senators under party-list proportional representation. The term of senators was decreased to six years, with two of the four groups electing their senators every three years. The number of senators was increased from 50 to 75 in 1956, and the distribution of seats among groups of provinces was adapted to account for changes in population distribution. The Senate was subjected to another reform in 1983. The term of senators was further reduced to four years, equal to that of Representatives. The system of groups of provinces and staggered elections was abolished in favour of quadrennial elections for the entire Senate in one nationwide constituency. Several minor changes have since been adopted. In 2010, the possibility for party lists to enter into an

electoral alliance An electoral alliance (also known as a bipartisan electoral agreement, electoral pact, electoral agreement, electoral coalition or electoral bloc) is an association of political parties or individuals that exists solely to stand in elections. E ...

was abolished, and the number of preference votes needed for a candidate to be elected was increased from 50% to 100% of the quota. The establishment of the three electoral colleges for the Caribbean Netherlands was made possible by the constitutional amendment of 2017. The members of the Caribbean electoral colleges were elected for the first time on March 20, 2019. Citizens of

Bonaire Bonaire (; , ; pap, Boneiru, , almost pronounced ) is a Dutch island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west (leeward) coast of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC ...

Sint Eustatius Sint Eustatius (, ), also known locally as Statia (), is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality (officially " public body") of the Netherlands. The island lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, s ...

and Saba with Dutch nationality are entitled to vote.Q&A's kiescollege 2019
Rijksdienst Caribisch Nederland 3 januari 2019, p. 1. The establishment of a non-resident electoral college was made possible by the 2022 constitutional amendment.

Parliamentary leaders

Members of the Presidium

Elections and membership

Electoral system

The 75 senators are elected every four years by the members of the States-Provincial of the country's twelve provinces and (since 2019) by electoral colleges elected in the

Caribbean Netherlands ) , image_map = BES islands location map.svg , map_caption = Location of the Caribbean Netherlands (green and circled). From left to right: Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatius , elevation_max_m = 887 , elevation_max_footnotes = , demographics ...

. The seats are distributed in one nationwide constituency using

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be u ...

. Remainder seats are distributed using the highest averages method. The weight of a member's vote is determined by the population of the province in which the voter is a member of the States-Provincial, at a ratio of approximately 1 vote per 100 residents. The table below shows the weight of members' votes per province as of the 2019 election.

Historic composition

, - ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;vertical-align:top;" , Parties ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;vertical-align:top;" , Seats 2019 ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;vertical-align:top;" , Seats 2015 ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;vertical-align:top;" , Seats 2011 ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;vertical-align:top;" , Seats 2007 ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;vertical-align:top;" , Seats 2003 ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;vertical-align:top;" , Seats 1999 ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;vertical-align:top;" , Seats 1995 ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;vertical-align:top;" , Seats 1991 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Forum for Democracy (FVD) , style="text-align:right;" , 12 , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

People's Party for Freedom and Democracy The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy ( nl, Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie ; VVD) is a conservative-liberal Andeweg, R. and G. Irwin ''Politics and Governance in the Netherlands'', Basingstoke (Palgrave) p.49 political party i ...

(VVD) , style="text-align:right;" , 12 , style="text-align:right;" , 13 , style="text-align:right;" , 16 , style="text-align:right;" , 14 , style="text-align:right;" , 15 , style="text-align:right;" , 19 , style="text-align:right;" , 23 , style="text-align:right;" , 12 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) , style="text-align:right;" , 9 , style="text-align:right;" , 12 , style="text-align:right;" , 11 , style="text-align:right;" , 21 , style="text-align:right;" , 23 , style="text-align:right;" , 20 , style="text-align:right;" , 19 , style="text-align:right;" , 27 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

GreenLeft GroenLinks (, ) is a Green politics, green List of political parties in the Netherlands, political party in the Netherlands. It was formed on 1 March 1989 from the merger of four Left-wing politics, left-wing parties: the Communist Party of th ...

(GL) , style="text-align:right;" , 8 , style="text-align:right;" , 4 , style="text-align:right;" , 5 , style="text-align:right;" , 4 , style="text-align:right;" , 5 , style="text-align:right;" , 8 , style="text-align:right;" , 4 , style="text-align:right;" , 4 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Democrats 66 Democrats 66 (; abbreviated D66, ) is a social liberal political party in the Netherlands, which positions itself in the centre of the political spectrum. It is a member of the Liberal International (LI) and the Alliance of Liberals and Demo ...

(D66) , style="text-align:right;" , 7 , style="text-align:right;" , 10 , style="text-align:right;" , 5 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 3 , style="text-align:right;" , 4 , style="text-align:right;" , 7 , style="text-align:right;" , 12 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Labour Party (PvdA) , style="text-align:right;" , 6 , style="text-align:right;" , 8 , style="text-align:right;" , 14 , style="text-align:right;" , 14 , style="text-align:right;" , 19 , style="text-align:right;" , 15 , style="text-align:right;" , 14 , style="text-align:right;" , 16 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Party for Freedom The Party for Freedom ( nl, Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) is a nationalist, right-wing populist political party in the Netherlands. Founded in 2006 as the successor to Geert Wilders' one-man faction in the House of Representatives, it won nine ...

(PVV) , style="text-align:right;" , 5 , style="text-align:right;" , 9 , style="text-align:right;" , 10 , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , - , style="text-align:left;" , Socialist Party (SP) , style="text-align:right;" , 4 , style="text-align:right;" , 9 , style="text-align:right;" , 8 , style="text-align:right;" , 12 , style="text-align:right;" , 4 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Christian Union Christian Union may refer to: * Christian Union (Lithuania), a Lithuanian Christian democratic political party (''Krikščionių sąjunga'' in Lithuanian) * Christian Union (Netherlands), a Dutch Christian democratic political party (''ChristenUn ...

(CU) , style="text-align:right;" , 4 , style="text-align:right;" , 3 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 4 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 4 , style="text-align:right;" , 2* , style="text-align:right;" , 2* , - , style="text-align:left;" , Party for the Animals (PvdD) , style="text-align:right;" , 3 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , - , style="text-align:left;" , 50PLUS (50+) , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Political Reformed Party The Reformed Political Party ( nl, Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij, SGP) is a conservative CalvinistThese sources describe the SGP as a Calvinist political party: * * * * * political party in the Netherlands. The term ''Reformed'' is not a ref ...

(SGP) , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Independent Senate Group (OSF) , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Pim Fortuyn List The Pim Fortuyn List ( nl, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, LPF) was a list of political parties in the Netherlands, political party in the Netherlands named after its eponymous founder Pim Fortuyn, a former university professor and political columnist. The p ...

(LPF) , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , - , style="text-align:left;" , General Elderly Alliance (AOV) , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , , style="text-align:right;" , 2 , style="text-align:right;" , , - , style="text-align:left;background-color:#E9E9E9", Total , width="30" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 75 , width="30" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 75 , width="30" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 75 , width="30" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 75 , width="30" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 75 , width="30" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 75 , width="30" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 75 , width="30" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 75 *

Reformatory Political Federation The Reformatory Political Federation ( nl, Reformatorische Politieke Federatie; RPF) was a minor Protestant Christian political party in the Netherlands. History The RPF was founded in 1975 by three groups of orthodox Christians. The first group ...

(RPF) and Reformed Political League (GPV)

Notes

References

External links

* (English) * (Dutch) {{Authority control States General of the Netherlands Dutch political institutions High Councils of State

1815 establishments in the Netherlands Organisations based in The Hague tk:Senat (Gollandiýa)