Tech Topics - Spring 2009 - (Page 23) BURDELL & FRIENDS For the People Daniel Webster defines public service “I didn’t see myself as a destined leader. It just seemed like a good opportunity to learn. I thought it would enhance my experience at Tech — and it did.” During his 28 years as a Florida lawmaker, Daniel Webster became the first Republican speaker of the House in 122 years. By Kimberly Link-Wills W hen Florida lawmakers got back to business in Tallahassee in January, Daniel Webster, for the first time in 28 years, wasn’t in their ranks. After 18 years in the Florida House and 10 in the Senate, Webster, EE 71, was forced to retire because of term limits. “Even though I don’t like term limits, it’s just the way it is. I’m happy,” Webster said. “I was the first Republican speaker of the House in 122 years, then I went to the Senate and was the majority leader. I’ve accomplished just about everything you can possibly do in the Legislature.” Webster is particularly happy about the improvements he helped make to Florida’s roadways. “Engineers tend to be drawn to things in government that are touchable and tangible, so I was drawn to transportation, including creative ways to fund roads and produce roads,” he said. “It’s not like the black hole of government. When you spend the money, you can actually see something for it in return.” A resident of Orlando, he frequently drives on a 30-mile stretch of road called the Daniel Webster Western Beltway. “There’s a big relief and a big monument at I-4 and the 429 commemorating the opening.That was pretty awesome, but I still have to pay the tolls on it,” Webster said. Last year, the Speaker Daniel Webster Hall was dedicated in the House, and a Florida Turnpike Enterprise building soon will bear his name as well. His favorite bill, however, has nothing to do with roads. It’s the one Webster introduced after a mother of five came to him in 1986 and asked him to help her win the legal right to home-school her children. “It was tough to even convince my Republican colleagues that it was something we should do, and the Democrats controlled everything in the state. That’s why it’s my favorite bill, because it ended up passing. It was amazing. I was in the minority, it was a difficult bill, there were no other friends for the bill,” Webster said. Today an estimated 80,000 children in Florida are home-schooled. One of the most famous was Tim Tebow, the Heisman Trophy-winning University of Florida quarterback. Webster said he was politically naive when first elected to the Legislature and was told, “‘No freshman ever gets their bills heard.’ You sit on the back row. So I read the rulebook every day. I wanted to know the rules better than anybody.” He waited some 16 years for his chance to change the way the legislative sessions were run. Historically, in Florida — and states around the country — noncontroversial bills were introduced early in the session. All the meaty matters were voted on at the end. “After midnight on the last day of the session every year, they would roll out big budgets, big bills, all the major stuff, and people would just vote. You would go home and six weeks later or six months later you’d find out what was really in those bills. One time there were scholarships for prisoners. “The year before I became speaker, the first bill that we took up was the naming of the state pie. After midnight on the last day of session, we passed a $40 billion budget, rewrote the welfare laws, created a new department of health and dismantled the department of commerce — hundreds and hundreds of pages,” Webster said. That all changed when Webster was elected speaker of the House. “I said, ‘We’re going to push down the pyramid of power and spread out the base so that every member can be a player. You’re going to have an opportunity to be heard. We’re not going to hear important issues at the end when there can’t be any debates or amendments. And we’re going to end every day at 6 o’clock — everything done in the sunshine.’” The legislators tackled education and election reform on the first day of the session. On the last day, TechTopics | Spring 2009 23
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