Russia's new Land Code is intended to serve as a comprehensive framework regulating rights of ownership, purchase, and sale of land in Russia. A land code, or equivalent legislation, is a requirement of the 1993 Constitution. Article 36.3 provides that regulation of the use of land is subject to federal law, and paragraph 1 declares that citizens have a right to own land as private property. Until 2001, however, parliament and president were unable to agree on legislation that would provide a legal foundation for exercising this constitutional right. Indeed, the subject of landownership rights has been one of the most sharply contested areas of legislation since the Constitution was enacted.

The left, led by the agrarian lobby and the Communist Party (CPRF), has strongly opposed any version of a land code that would legalize private ownership. Until spring 2001, the management of legislation in this area was in the hands of the agrarian lobby; it dominated the agriculture committees in the Duma that had jurisdiction over this issue. The drafts that the agrarians produced in the mid-1990s were restrictive and were opposed by President Boris Yeltsin. Even when the draft laws were passed by the Duma, the parliament lacked the votes to override a presidential veto. President Yeltsin was similarly stymied in his attempt to use decree power to set policy. Yeltsin did try, in March 1996, to put the constitutional right to landownership into effect by decree; the parliament then quickly countered with a law "clarifying" the implementation of the decree, which largely nullified its impact. Since then, the basis for the growing volume of land transactions has been a patchwork of regional laws, local regulations, and presidential decrees. Still, buyers cannot be confident in the security of their property titles, and experts and market actors have agreed that only a federal law would have sufficient credibility to assure lenders and buyers that such titles are safe.1

In 1996, the Duma passed an agrarian-backed version of the Land Code, which was rejected by the Federation Council, and in 1997 the Duma adopted a new version that passed the Federation Council but was vetoed by the president. The Duma overrode the president's veto but in 1998 the Federation Council sustained it. The Duma and Federation Council then worked out a version that both chambers could agree on; however, this version was again vetoed by the president. The Duma then debated a version acceptable to the president but failed to find 226 votes for it (at one point it received 225 votes). This legislation would have allowed some market transactions in land under highly limited conditions, thus tightening federal control over land policy. When the bill failed on July 16, 1998, action largely lapsed until the end of the Duma's term in December 1999. The president's strategy, supported by many of the liberals in the Duma, was to allow the regions to enact their own, more liberal, land laws rather than to hold legislation hostage to the powerful communist-agrarian lobby in the Duma.

The shift in the Duma's composition following the 1999 elections broke the impasse. The liberal Union of Right Forces (URF) faction-apparently with the Kremlin's blessing-tried repeatedly to pass legislation to unblock chapter 17 of the Civil Code, which provides a legal basis for private transactions in land.2 Three efforts by URF to release the hold on that chapter failed in the course of 2000. However, the Duma did vote by a narrow margin to approve the right of borrowers to secure debt with land. Then, on January 26, 2001, the Duma voted in the first reading to pass a law putting chapter 17 into effect. The law passed by the narrow margin of 229 votes, signaling that the Kremlin was finally ready to pass a liberal land code. At a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and other members of the government a few days after this vote, the government was instructed to draft a new version of a land code, to be ready for submission to the Duma at the end of February.3 The president's intentions were made still clearer when responsibility for drafting the bill was given to German Gref, the minister for economic development and trade, who has overseen the development of a very market-oriented program of legislation in tax and social policy. Meantime, however, Putin himself gave vague and contradictory signals regarding his own position on land issues, as if distancing himself from the work of his liberal wing.

Gref's staff worked on developing a land code whose terms would be acceptable to both the government and the governors, some of whom wanted to preserve the right to maintain their own legislation even as others wanted a complete prohibition on market transactions in land.4 Another problem was how to define and allot ownership rights among federal, regional, and municipal jurisdictions, since title frequently could be unclear and some lands were claimed by two or even three levels of government simultaneously. Putin, in the meantime, attempted to reassure the governors that he supported giving the regions "maximum freedom in settling the land problem within the framework of basic law." Federation Council chairman Yegor Stroev endorsed Putin's approach, declaring that "the quicker the Land Code is approved, the better for Russia's agricultural sector and its farmers."5 But all the while Putin was mollifying the governors, his team was preparing a law that unequivocally legalized the purchase and sale of nonagricultural land.

In late March, in the second and third readings, the Duma passed the law unfreezing chapter 17 of the Civil Code, and immediately afterward, at the beginning of April, Minister Gref submitted his draft to the government for approval. On April 25, after the government signed off on it, he submitted it to the Duma. Following standard procedure, the Duma sent the draft out to the legislatures of the regions for comment. This requirement creates considerable opportunity for delay, sometimes indefinite. In this case, the bill's opponents-the Communists and the agrarian lobby in the Duma-attempted to stir up negative reactions from their allies in regional parliaments.

On May 17, the Council of the Duma voted to remove the bill from the agriculture committee's jurisdiction and turn it over, instead, to the property committee. This was a strong indication that the Kremlin now wanted action on its liberal draft. Predictably, the agriculture committee, which had controlled the bill in the first and second Dumas, was staunchly opposed to a version that recognized property rights in land, whereas the property committee, headed by a Unity deputy, reflected more closely the propresidential balance of forces in the chamber (indeed, members of the propresidential factions had a slight majority on the committee). In the interim, the regional legislatures, many of which opposed it, had sent in their comments and resolutions on the bill. But the fact that the property committee now had jurisdiction meant that it was responsible for taking into account and tallying the responses from the regions.

The version of the bill that the property committee reported out for a vote in the first reading stipulated that the Land Code would not apply to agricultural lands and that the regulation of transactions in agricultural land would instead be the subject of a separate law. This point was undoubtedly intended to win over centrist deputies and to soften regional opposition. By the time the bill came to the floor on June 15, it commanded a clear majority, although the Communists did attempt to disrupt the voting by shouting down the bill's sponsors and provoking a physical altercation. The bill passed with 251 votes.

The Communists then shifted their efforts to the regions, pressing regional legislatures to demand that the bill be rejected. The party's strategy was based on a
hitherto-unused provision in the Law on the Principles and Procedures for the Demarcation of Subjects of Jurisdiction and Powers Between Organs of State Power of the Russian Federation and Organs of State Power of the Subjects of the Russian Federation. Under this 1999 law, if more than one third of the territorial subjects' legislatures "express a position opposing" (vyskazhutsia protiv) a draft bill dealing with an issue subject to both federal and regional jurisdiction (as is the case with land regulation), the bill is to be sent to a so-called agreement commission comprising deputies of the Duma and representatives of the interested territorial subjects. This provision had never been used, and its language was vague. There is no definition of what constitutes an official expression of a position by a territorial subject's legislature nor indication of how such opinions were to be determined. The communists intended to make use of this provision to force a delay in the passage of the bill and, presumably, to ensure that it would be weakened or gutted by the agreement commission.

Over 30 subjects did send conclusions criticizing the bill. The parliamentary left claimed that 34 territorial legislatures explicitly opposed passage.6 However, as Stalin said of elections, what counts is not how they vote but who counts the vote. In this case, the property committee controlled the procedures for reviewing the regional reactions. The committee chair declared that he had received only 26 reports from the regions demanding the creation of an agreement commission. The president's representative in the Duma, Aleksandr Kotenkov, commented that the regional reports varied considerably in form and could not be considered legally binding documents. He also claimed that this procedure applied only if 30 regions called for rejecting the bill before the first reading, and he stated, additionally, that the opposition had come only from legislative branches rather than from both the legislative and executive branches of the 30 subjects.7 The Duma's legal administration refused to take a position on the issue. 8 When the issue of whether to form an agreement commission with the regions' representatives went to the floor, on July 13, a majority of deputies agreed with the president's position.9 The Communists warned that they would appeal the issue to the Constitutional Court on the grounds that the Duma's procedures violated the law, but one of the Court's judges, Tatiana Morshchakova, told journalists that the Court could not consider any such appeal until the law itself had been enacted.10 The next day, July 14, the Duma passed the Land Code in second reading with 253 affirmative votes.

The president's support base consisted of the staunchly pro-Kremlin faction, Unity, and its frequent ally, Fatherland-All Russia (FAR), which commands relatively high discipline. Joining it with overwhelming majorities were the liberal factions URF and Yabloko. Vladimir Zhirinovsky's usually propresidential and highly disciplined if minuscule, faction, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), also supported the bill. The deputy groups Peoples' Deputy and Russia's Regions were not cohesive in supporting the bill; although a majority of Peoples' Deputy voted for the bill in first and second readings, fewer than half of Russia's Regions did so. But half of Russia's Regions is still more than all of LDPR or Yabloko, and with most of Peoples' Deputy also supporting it, the bill passed by a comfortable margin. (The table below indicates the breakdown of factional support for four of the votes related to the Land Code in June and July.)

The Duma returned to the bill after its summer recess, approving it in the third reading on September 20 and then again (on the grounds that there were discrepancies in the version that the deputies had voted on) on September 28. The bill was then sent to the Federation Council.

At that point the battlefield shifted to the Federation Council. The opposition could appeal to the senators' interest both in acquiring wider control over land matters and in raising doubts about the propriety of the procedures the Duma had followed. The opposition particularly hoped to appeal to the senators by charging that the Duma had ignored the explicit will of more than one third of the regions. At first, it appeared that the Federation Council would defeat the bill. On the day the Duma passed the bill in its third reading, Chairman Stroev told journalists that the Land Code in its present form would fail in the Federation Council and would need serious revision. He noted his own belief that the bill should assign control over land policy to regional governments. Clearly, he hoped to push the bill into an agreement commission in order to soften it and give more power over land issues to the regions. This would have been a viable strategy, since the Duma lacked the votes needed to override a veto in the upper house. The Kremlin, however, had made the land code a high priority, and its backers in the Federation Council were growing increasingly strong.

The president's base of support in the Federation Council expanded significantly during the spring and summer. As the result of the law changing how Federation Council members are selected, membership in the chamber experienced significant turnover. Previously, the senators were the governors and legislative chairs of the regions. The new law establishes that the regions' executive and legislative branches are to choose delegates to represent them in the Federation Council on a full-time basis. By the beginning of the chamber's fall term in 2001, over half of the membership was new, and a majority-two-thirds of new members at the time of the Land Code vote in October-joined the informal propresidential caucus called "Federation." Federation declared its intention to ensure the bill's passage. The Land Code was the occasion for a struggle between the old and new members for control of the chamber and it soon became evident that Federation had the numbers and the strength to pass the bill. On October 9, the day before the bill was to come up on the floor of the Federation Council, President Putin weighed in. Meeting with the State Council in Orenburg, Putin commented that it was time "to do everything to shut down the speculation surrounding the adoption of a land law."11 He pointed out that, in any case, the law did not affect agricultural land. Sizing up the political situation, Chairman Stroev shifted his position. On October 10, Stroev avoided opposing the bill outright and simply noted that the bill's weaknesses could be remedied through presidential decrees.12

The Federation Council approved the Land Code by a wide margin on a roll-call vote on October 10, 2001. The bill passed with 103 affirmative votes (58 percent of the membership, and 73 percent of those voting); 29 were opposed; 9 abstained; and 35 members did not cast any vote (2 seats were vacant at the time). The outcome demonstrated the influence of the propresidential camp within the chamber. In the end, even Stroev joined his colleagues in supporting the bill. The ease with which the bill passed surprised some observers, since many regional leaders did oppose it, and the possibility existed that the members of the chamber might have held out for an agreement commission.

Certainly the chamber's support staff, traditionally an influential source of guidance on many legislative issues, opposed the bill and provided various grounds the members could have used in defeating the code or sending it to an agreement commission. The legal department issued a report warning of legal discontinuities once the Land Code was passed, leading to "conflict situations in the way law is enforced." It also called attention to the Duma's decision to overlook the opposition of over 30 territorial legislatures. The report left little doubt where the staff stood: "The Federation Council lacks the power, constitutionally or otherwise, to evaluate the rules of procedure used by the State Duma in passing the bill, which are not defined by the Constitution." However, "every member of the Federation Council, determining his own position in voting on a federal law, has the right to take into account the circumstances associated with the procedures for the bill's passage, especially those aspects that are directed at taking into account the interests of the subjects of the Russian Federation and which are fixed in federal laws."13

However, the Federation group chose to make the bill a test of its ability to impose disciplined voting on its members. The group leaked information to the press to the effect that it would use strong-arm tactics to enforce the group's line. Reportedly, it demanded written confirmation of each member's position on the bill. If after the roll-call vote, it turned out that a member had violated the group's voting discipline, the defector would be expelled.14

The fact that the chamber used a roll call-a rare event in the upper house-makes it possible to analyze the voting patterns more closely. The vote tally shows that Federation's cohesion was considerably less than perfect. Only 70 percent of its members voted for the Land Code, and 12 percent directly opposed the bill, while another 18 percent either abstained or refrained from voting altogether. A more significant cleavage within the chamber was the gap between the positions of old and new members, that is, between those who still held their seats as governors and legislature chairs and those who had been named as full-time representatives by their governors and legislators. The difference in their voting positions was marked: 68 of the 86 new members (79 percent) voted in favor of the law, while only 35 of the 90 old members (39 percent) voted in favor (the difference in positions between old and new members is significant at the .0001 level). Slightly less marked, but still statistically significant at the .01 level, was the effect of the difference between representatives of legislative and executive branches. Executive-branch representatives, whether old or new, were more likely to support the bill than were legislative-branch members (67 percent as opposed to 49 percent).

One other notable feature of the Federation Council's vote was the fact that over one third of the old members chose not to be present for the vote, whereas only three new members failed to vote. The absentees were rather evenly divided between governors and speakers: 18 governors were absent, and 14 speakers. Since not voting is equivalent to opposing a measure, one inference is that the nonvoters were expressing their opposition in a manner that avoided direct confrontation with Putin.

In both chambers, President Putin's political advisers skillfully used new factional structures, outside the existing lines of control linking speaker and staff, to exercise leadership and apply pressure on members, enabling them to pass a controversial piece of legislation important to Putin's political and economic strategy. In the Duma, the outcome of the vote on the Land Code reflected the success in building a propresidential majority coalition (consisting of four factions, Unity and FAR and the deputy groups Peoples' Deputy and Russia's Regions). 151 1

In the Federation Council, a reliable propresidential majority required sufficient turnover of senators under the new membership law to make a powerful propresidential caucus possible. The new members joined the group en masse, exchanging loyalty to the president on legislative issues for present and future career benefits. The old membership had been considerably more independent of the Kremlin, since the senators all had political bases in their home regions. For the moment, the new arrangement cuts down on bargaining costs for the Kremlin and gives it a more predictable and secure path for the passage of desired legislation. But the same arrangement also creates a potential new source of political demands on the Kremlin, since it gives the new members an institutional mechanism for overcoming differences within the chamber.

The experience of the last decade suggests that as Russian parliamentarians have acquired institutional resources for forming legislative majorities, they have increased their bargaining power vis-à-vis the executive branch. 16 The president's success, therefore, in engineering the passage of the Land Code may also foreshadow a more active and independent parliament in the future.