05 · Practice
Constituency work
The Bundestag sits for about twenty weeks a year. The rest of the time a constituency MP is expected to be at home.
Every member of the Bundestag receives an allowance to employ staff and run offices, and most directly elected MPs keep at least one office in their constituency. Bilger's is in Ludwigsburg, on the Stuttgarter Straße. Such offices handle letters and emails from constituents, arrange appointments and visits, and keep in touch with local councils, firms, associations and party branches. For constituency MPs generally, a week outside Berlin typically includes visits to companies and institutions, local party meetings, events of associations such as the CDU seniors' organisation pictured on the Ludwigsburg page, and public question-and-answer sessions.
Bilger has spoken about this side of the job in the plenary. On 16 September 2025, as First Parliamentary Secretary, he defended shorter debating times during a budget week. According to the Bundestag's report, he argued that a shorter Friday schedule gave members time for their constituencies and their families, since the Bundestag was sitting three weeks in a row that September.
The constituency also feeds into federal work in less visible ways. Local concerns about a motorway junction, a rail line or a company's future can become written questions to the government, letters to a ministry or points raised inside the parliamentary group. Bilger's voluntary roles listed with the Bundestag reflect local ties: he sits on the board of trustees of the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, the city's classical music festival, and was until 2021 a member of the supporters' circle of the MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg basketball club.