The members of the State Council were elected by the provincial parliaments and gave the provinces of Prussia a voice in the legislative process.

The Council had an indirect right to introduce legislation, could object to bills passed by the Reichstag and had to approve expenditures that exceeded the budget.

A revival was attempted with the decree of 12 January 1852 that re-established the Council,[2] but it found no proper place for itself in a state with a constitution.

The Prussian Constitution of 1920, implemented after the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the fall of the Hohenzollern monarchy, established a State Council in Section IV, Article 31 as a body for the participation of the provinces in the legislative process.

[7] It also had an indirect right of initiative: proposals went to the State Ministry (the Prussian minister president and his cabinet) and had to be passed on by it to the Landtag.

[9] Konrad Adenauer of the Centre Party, then mayor of Cologne and after World War II the first chancellor of West Germany, held the chairmanship of the State Council from its inception until the Nazi takeover in 1933.

He thought that under Minister President Otto Braun of the Social Democrats (SPD), it was not treating the State Council with the importance that it deserved under the constitution.

The decree left Braun's cabinet in place as an all but meaningless caretaker government and the State Council with little room to act.

[12] In a move towards dissolving the Landtag, Reich President Hindenburg by emergency decree unlawfully stripped Braun of his remaining powers on 6 February 1933 and replaced him with von Papen.

Following the elections to the provincial parliaments held the same month, the Nazis secured a majority of seats in the State Council.