In 2000, he joined the Free Democratic Party and began running in local elections in Hohenbrunn. In 2008, he failed to win election to the Bavarian legislature. In 2009, he was elected to the German Bundestag. He served only one term as the Free Democrats failed to reach the five percent threshold in the 2013 election, costing it all of its seats. Schulz returned to the Bundestag in the 2017 election.