Legislative guardian

Florida Congressman Daniel Webster’s office displays a standard American flag and a painting of Abraham Lincoln kneeling in prayer. What’s happily missing, though, are photos with celebrities. Instead, among the family photos is a John MacArthur Study Bible and a book containing the speeches of the 19th-century Daniel Webster, a distant relative who gained fame as an orator while serving in the U.S. Senate and twice as U.S. secretary of state.

Webster, 65, is unlikely to have that career at the federal level. He was first elected to the House in 2010, after serving 28 years in the Florida Legislature. At 6 feet 3 inches, he’s a big guy who makes a quiet impression and takes care of constituents. He’s not a camera hog or headline chaser—and that’s why it’s surprising to find him at the center of the House lawsuit against the president of the United States.

Critics say radical Republicans are behind the lawsuit challenging President Obama’s penchant for unilateral executive action, but Webster doesn’t fit that narrative. Yes, he’s personally conservative and staunchly pro-life, yet conservative critics say he isn’t conservative enough in Congress. He was one of 87 GOP House members who joined 198 Democrats to end the government shutdown last year. The National Journal this year rated two-thirds of House Republicans as more conservative than he. But Webster says he votes for a bill if he likes 51 percent of it, because “I’m elected by 50 percent plus one. There are no perfect bills, other than maybe the Mother’s Day resolution.”

Webster has long been an enemy of expanded executive power. He talks about Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, suing him in 1998 to stop the Legislature from overriding his vetoes, including a ban on partial-birth abortion. The Florida Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Webster’s favor. Later, the Florida House and Senate individually won lawsuits against Republican governors whom the courts ruled had overstepped their executive authority.

In 2000, when Webster was a state senator, he played a role in the outcome of the presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. When seven justices of the state Supreme Court granted Gore another recount after the first one gave Bush a narrow victory, attorneys said the Legislature had no standing to challenge the decision in court.

Webster argued the U.S. Constitution, not the state constitution, granted the Legislature its authority to set election rules, so the body should appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. He found an attorney willing to try, and days later the high court overturned the state ruling. The decision didn’t end the 2000 election controversy, but it delivered a rebuke to the Florida Supreme Court and restored the Legislature’s role in the process.

Now in Washington, Webster helped convince the House GOP to pursue unconventional means to preserve congressional power against a president who, Republicans say, has exceeded his authority on issues ranging from immigration to welfare reform, and refuses to enforce laws he doesn’t like, including marijuana laws. Last March the House passed a bill authorizing a lawsuit against the president, but not surprisingly, it died in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Using a legal maneuver that allows one legislative body to challenge an executive’s authority, Republicans—following Webster’s Florida playbook—crafted a binding resolution not requiring Senate approval. Although Democrats say the lawsuit has no chance of success, Webster says that’s not the point: “You don’t have to know what your chances are—you need to know you’re right.” He says it’s not a partisan move: “What you’re defending is not the current speaker, governor, or in this case the president, but the constitutional distinction between the branches of government.”

An August CBS poll found a majority of Americans disapproving of the unprecedented lawsuit against the president, which focuses on President Obama’s ability to waive provisions of the Affordable Care Act. That probably means Republicans will wait until after the midterm elections to actually file the lawsuit in court.

Florida's homeschooling father

In the early 1980s, conflicting Florida court opinions left in doubt the legality of homeschooling. Two families approached then-state Rep. Daniel Webster in 1984 and asked if he would champion homeschooling in Florida. He had never heard of homeschooling; but after one of the parents, attorney Craig Dickinson, explained the bill he had written, Webster agreed to push for it.

Webster said it took a while to explain the bill even to Republicans, but the turning point came at a House Education Committee hearing: A large contingent of home education advocates came to support the bill, and many filled out cards requesting to testify. The chairman flipped through the cards, said he didn’t want to hear from the adults, and instead selected an 11-year-old boy at random to address the committee. “He marches up to the podium, pulls the microphone down, and says, ‘Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I came here to address you today to say you have my future in your hands,’” Webster recalls. “He made this awesome speech, and they gave him a standing ovation.”

The House and Senate both approved the bill, but Democratic Gov. Bob Graham threatened to veto it. Webster took Dickinson and a University of West Florida professor, both Democrats, to meet with Graham on the last day of the legislative session. Graham listened intently, looked over at his chief of staff, and said, “What do you think?” The chief nodded. Graham pulled out his pen and signed the bill.

The experience impressed Webster so much he decided to homeschool his own six children, who had to miss school when the Legislature was in session. Home education offered the perfect solution. For years public educators made repealing the home education law their No. 1 priority, but homeschoolers won the state geography and spelling bees, a homeschooler became the University of Florida’s valedictorian, and three became top students at Harvard. “And then they didn’t want to talk about it any more,” Webster said. The basic law hasn’t changed, but it now allows dual enrollment and athletic participation—giving rise to football star Tim Tebow and others. —J.C.D.