The Reichsrat of the Weimar Republic was the de facto upper house of Germany's parliament; the lower house was the popularly elected Reichstag. The Reichsrat's members were appointed by the German state governments to represent their interests in the legislation and administration of the nation at the federal level. Its powers were relatively limited, making it considerably weaker than its predecessor, the Bundesrat of the German Empire (1871–1918). It could introduce legislation for the Reichstag to consider and veto laws that it passed, but the vetoes could be overridden. The Reichsrat also played a role in administering and implementing Reich laws. After the National Socialists took control in 1933, they centralized all power, including that of the states. The Reichsrat no longer had a function to perform and was dissolved by law on 14 February 1934. Composition The Reichsrat was composed of representatives of the eighteen German states, whose governments appointed its members. According to Article 63 of the Weimar Constitution, "the states shall be represented in the Reichsrat by members of their ministries". All Reichsrat deputies had an imperative mandate – that is, they were bound by instructions from the governmental body that had appointed them. The number of representatives from the constituent states was based on their population. Article 61 guaranteed each state at least one vote and therefore one member. In the case of larger states, one vote was originally allotted for every one million inhabitants. A Reich law of 24 March 1921 lowered the number to every 700,000 inhabitants and provided that a remainder of at least 350,000 inhabitants be counted as 700,000. No state was allowed to have more than two-fifths of all votes, or members. Prussia, whose population would have justified it having just over sixty percent of Reichsrat votes, was the only state affected by the two-fifths maximum. Its still strong position was further weakened as of 14 July 1921 when, under a state law referenced in Article 63, half of its members had to be chosen by the provincial associations of the Prussian provinces rather than by the state government. (A Prussian provincial association () was a body of local self-government above the municipalities and the rural and urban districts.) This ( "anti-Prussian clause"), by preventing Prussia's state government from exerting too much influence, was intended to achieve a certain fairness with respect to the smaller states that had fewer votes .