House of Councillors

The power of House of Councillors is very similar to the Canadian Senate or the Irish Seanad.^[2] In central issues, there is a "supremacy of the House of Representatives" (ja:衆議院の優越, Shūgiin no yūetsu): In the election of the prime minister, in the ratification of international treaties and on passing the budget, a decision by the House of Representatives always overrides House of Councillors dissent. And only the lower house can pass votes of no-confidence against the cabinet. All other legislation requires either the approval by majorities in both houses, an agreement in the conference committee of both houses or an additional override vote by two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives.^[3][4] (No single party has ever won a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives under the current constitution, although the LDP came close several times, as did the DPJ in 2009.) In other words: Controlling a majority in the House of Councillors and one third of the House of Representatives is enough for a united opposition to be able to block the passage of legislation. For certain important administrative nominations by the cabinet, the approval of both houses is required absolutely (although the laws containing this requirement could be changed by two-thirds lower house override as a "nuclear option"); and constitutional amendment proposals need two-thirds majorities in both the houses of the Diet to be submitted to the people in a national referendum.^[2]

One additional constitutional role of the House of Councillors is to serve as functioning fully elected emergency legislature on its own during lower house election campaigns: While the House of Representatives is dissolved, the National Diet can't be convened, and therefore no law can be passed in regular procedure; but in urgent cases requiring parliamentary action (e.g. election management, provisional budgets, disaster response), an emergency session (緊急集会, kinkyū shūkai) of the House of Councillors can still be invoked to take provisional decisions for the whole Diet. Such decisions will become invalid unless confirmed by the House of Representatives as soon as the whole Diet convenes again.

The basic stipulations on the role of the House of Councillors are subject of chapter IV of the constitution.^[5] Laws and rules containing more detailed provisions on parliamentary procedures and the relations between the two houses include the National Diet Law (国会法, Kokkai-hō),^[6] the conference committee regulations (両院協議会規程, ryōin-kyōgikai kitei),^[7] and the rules of each house (衆議院/参議院規則, Shūgiin/Sangiin kisoku).^[8]

Constitutional practice

In practice, governments often tried to ensure legislative majorities, either by forming coalition governments with safe legislative majorities in the first place or by negotiating with part of the opposition, or avoided to submit bills with no prospects of passage,^[9] so the House of Councillors rarely voted against the decisions reached by the lower house for much of postwar history: As the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), founded in 1955, often held majorities in both houses or was sufficiently close to control both houses together with independents and micro-parties for a long period, inter-chamber disagreement was rare during most of the 1955 System.

After the opposition victory in the 1989 election, the relative importance of the House of Councillors initially increased, as the LDP continued to govern alone and did not hold a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives. Crucial legislation had to be negotiated with parts of the opposition. The most prominent example was the so-called "PKO Diet" (ja:PKO国会, PKO Kokkai) of 1992 when the LDP negotiated and passed the peace-keeping operations bill with centre-left/right-of-JSP opposition parties (DSP and Kōmeitō) against fierce opposition from JSP and JCP; the PKO law became the base for the Self-Defense Forces' first (ground) deployment abroad as part of the UN mission in Cambodia. After the 1993 House of Representatives election, with the exception of a brief minority government in 1994, coalition governments or the confidence and supply arrangement during the restored LDP single-party government ensured legislative government majorities until the opposition victory in the 1998 House of Councillors election which led to the formation of another coalition government by 1999.

The legislative two-thirds override power of the House of Representatives was never used between 1950s and 2008 when the LDP-Kōmeitō coalition government had lost the House of Councillors majority in the 2007 election, but did control a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives since 2005. After that, it has been used somewhat more frequently (see ja:衆議院の再議決, Shūgin no saikaketsu, ~"Override decisions by the House of Representatives" for a list). If a government controls a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives and is willing to use it, the House of Councillors can only delay a bill, but not prevent passage.

Opposition control of the House of Councillors is often summarized by the term nejire Kokkai (ja:ねじれ国会, "twisted" or "skewed" Diet). Setting aside the immediate postwar years, when many governments were in the minority in the upper house, but the strongest force, the centrist Ryokufūkai, was not in all-out opposition to either centre-left or centre-right governments and willing to cooperate, the Diet was "twisted" from 1989 to 1993, 1998–1999, 2007–2009, and most recently 2010–2013.

"Gridlock" and reform proposals

In recent years, many constitutional revision advocates call for reforming the role of the House of Councillors ("carbon copy" of the House of Representatives or "recalcitrant naysayer") or abolishing it altogether to "prevent political paralysis", after the recently more frequent twisted Diets have seen an increase in inter-chamber friction/"political nightmare"s.^[10][11] Examples of high-stakes, internationally noted conflicts in recent twisted Diets:

• In 2008, two nominees for BoJ governor by the Fukuda Cabinet (Toshirō Mutō, Kōji Tanami) were rejected by the DPJ-led opposition in the House of Councillors, and the SDF naval support mission for NATO/OEF in the Indian Ocean had to be interrupted for one month while the extension of the anti-terrorism law was delayed by the extended legislative proceedings necessary to override the House of Councillors rejection.
• In 2011, the Kan Cabinet struggled to pass a renewable energy bill and a bond ceiling increase (unlike the budget itself subject to the normal legislative procedure) against the LDP-led opposition majority in the House of Councillors until it negotiated a deal with the LDP in exchange for child allowance reform and the cabinet's resignation which Kan had already announced, but conditioned on the passage of the bills.^[12][13]

Article 102 of the Japanese Constitution provided that half of the councillors elected in the first House of Councillors election in 1947 would be up for re-election three years later in order to introduce staggered six-year terms.

The House initially had 250 seats. Two seats were added to the House in 1970 after the agreement on the repatriation of Okinawa, increasing the House to a total of 252.^[14] Legislation aimed at addressing malapportionment that favoured less populated prefectures was introduced in 2000; this resulted in ten seats being removed (five each at the 2001 and 2004 elections), bringing the total number of seats to 242.^[14] Further reforms to address malapportionment took effect in 2007 and 2016, but did not change the total number of members in the house.^[14]

From 1947 to 1983, the House had 100 seats allocated to a national block (全国区, zenkoku-ku), of which fifty seats were allocated in each election.^[14] It was originally intended to give nationally prominent figures a route to the House without going through local electioneering processes.^{[citation needed]} Some national political figures, such as feminists Shidzue Katō and Fusae Ichikawa and former Imperial Army general Kazushige Ugaki, were elected through the block, along with a number of celebrities such as comedian Yukio Aoshima (later Governor of Tokyo), journalist Hideo Den and actress Yūko Mochizuki.^{[citation needed]} Shintaro Ishihara won a record 3 million votes in the national block in the 1968 election.^{[citation needed]} The national block was last seen in the 1980 election and was replaced with a nationwide proportional representation block in the 1983 election.^[14] The national proportional representation block was reduced to 96 members in the 2000 reforms.^[14]

Composition of the House of Councillors of the National Diet of Japan (as of 16 April 2024, 213th National Diet)^[15]

Caucus (English name)[16] (domestic name)		Parties	Members
			Term						Total
			29 July 2019 – 28 July 2025 (elected 2019, up 2025)			26 July 2022 – 25 July 2028 (elected 2022, up 2028)
			PR	SNTV/FPTP	Subtotal	PR	SNTV/FPTP	Subtotal
Government			26	40	66	24	52	76	142
	Liberal Democratic Party Jiyūminshutō	Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)	19	33	52	18	45	63	115
	Komeito Kōmeitō	Komeito	7	7	14	6	7	13	27
Opposition			22	26	48	25	19	44	92
	The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Social Democratic Party Rikken-minshu / Shamin	Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) Social Democratic Party (SDP) Independents	8	14	22	8	10	18	40
	Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) and Free Education for All Nippon Ishin no Kai / Kyōiku mushō-ka o jitsugen suru Kai	Nippon Ishin no Kai Free Education for All (FEFA)	4	5	9	8	4	12	21
	Democratic Party For the People and The Shin-Ryokufukai Kokumin-minshutō / Shin-Ryokufūkai	Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) Independents	3	3	6	3	2	5	11
	Japanese Communist Party Nihon Kyōsantō	Japanese Communist Party (JCP)	4	3	7	3	1	4	11
	Reiwa Shinsengumi Reiwa Shinsengumi	Reiwa Shinsengumi	2	0	2	2	1	3	5
	The Party to Protect People from NHK NHK kara kokumin o mamoru tō	Seijika Joshi 48 Party	1	0	1	1	0	1	2
	Okinawa Whirlwind Okinawa no Kaze	Okinawa Social Mass Party	0	1	1	0	1	1	2
Independents (government & opposition)			1	7	8	1	3	4	12
	Independents Members not affiliated with any parliamentary caucus	LDP 1 (President) CDP 1 (Vice President) Sanseitō 1 Independents 9
Total			49	73	122	50	74	124	246
	Vacant: one Kanagawa seat in the 2019 class (no separate by-election unless more than 25% of the district in that class are vacant)[17] one CDP list proportional seat (scheduled runner-up replacement: Masayoshi Okumura)[18]	N/A	1	1	2	0	0	0	2
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For a list of individual members, see the List of members of the Diet of Japan#House of Councillors.

20th century

Election	Cabinet	Prime Minister	Date	Turnout	Total seats	Elected seats	Term expiration date	Majority party / Seats share				Emperor (Reign)
1st	Yoshida I	Shigeru Yoshida	20 April 1947	61.12%	250	250	2 May 1953		Socialist	47	18.80%	Shōwa (1926–1989)
2nd	Yoshida III		4 June 1950	72.19%		125	3 June 1956		Liberal	76	30.40%
3rd	Yoshida IV		24 April 1953	63.18%			2 May 1959			93	37.20%
4th	I. Hatoyama III	Ichirō Hatoyama	8 July 1956	62.11%			7 July 1962		Liberal Democratic	122	48.80%
5th	Kishi II	Nobusuke Kishi	2 June 1959	58.75%			1 June 1965			132	52.80%
6th	Ikeda II	Hayato Ikeda	1 July 1962	68.22%			7 July 1968			142	56.80%
7th	Satō I	Eisaku Satō	4 July 1965	67.02%			1 July 1971			140	55.77%
8th	Satō II		7 July 1968	68.94%			7 July 1974			142	54.80%
9th	Satō III		27 June 1971	59.24%	252	126	10 July 1977			131	52.61%
10th	K. Tanaka II	Kakuei Tanaka	7 July 1974	73.20%			7 July 1980			126	50.40%
11th	T. Fukuda	Takeo Fukuda	10 July 1977	68.49%			9 July 1983			124	49.79%
12th	Ōhira II	Masayoshi Ōhira	22 June 1980	74.54%			7 July 1986			135	54.00%
13th	Nakasone I	Yasuhiro Nakasone	26 June 1983	57.00%			9 July 1989			137	54.36%
14th	Nakasone II (R2)		6 July 1986	71.36%			7 July 1992			143	56.74%
15th	Uno	Sōsuke Uno	23 July 1989	65.02%	252	126	22 July 1995			109	43.25%	Akihito (Heisei) (1989–2019)
16th	Miyazawa	Kiichi Miyazawa	26 July 1992	50.72%			25 July 1998			107	42.46%
17th	Murayama	Tomiichi Murayama	23 July 1995	44.52%			22 July 2001			111	44.04%
18th	Hashimoto II (R)	Ryutaro Hashimoto	12 July 1998	58.84%			25 July 2004			103	40.87%
Election	Cabinet	Prime Minister	Date	Turnout	Total seats	Elected seats	Term expiration date	Majority party / Seats share				Emperor (Reign)

21st century

Election	Cabinet	Prime Minister	Date	Turnout	Total seats	Elected seats	Term expiration date	Majority party / Seats share				Emperor (Reign)
19th	Koizumi I	Junichiro Koizumi	29 July 2001	56.44%	247	121	28 July 2007		Liberal Democratic	111	44.93%	Akihito (Heisei) (1989–2019)
20th	Koizumi II		11 July 2004	56.57%	242		25 July 2010			115	47.52%
21st	S. Abe I	Shinzo Abe	29 July 2007	58.64%			28 July 2013		Democratic	109	45.04%
22nd	Kan	Naoto Kan	11 July 2010	57.92%			25 July 2016			106	43.80%
23rd	S. Abe II	Shinzo Abe	21 July 2013	52.61%			28 July 2019		Liberal Democratic	115	47.52%
24th	S. Abe III (R1)		10 July 2016	54.70%			25 July 2022			121	50.00%
25th	S. Abe IV (R1)		21 July 2019	48.80%	245	124	28 July 2025			113	46.12%	Naruhito (Reiwa) (2019–present)
26th	Kishida II	Fumio Kishida	10 July 2022	52.05%	248		25 July 2028			119	47.98%
Election	Cabinet	Prime Minister	Date	Turnout	Total seats	Elected seats	Term expiration date	Majority party / Seats share				Emperor (Reign)

• President of the House of Councillors
• List of current members of the House of Councillors
• List of districts of the House of Councillors of Japan

Specific

Bibliography

• Hayes, L. D., 2009. Introduction to Japanese Politics. 5th ed. New York: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-2279-2

• House of Councillors Website (in English)
• House of Councillors internet TV - Official site (in Japanese)