Webster: ‘Up To The Members’ To Decide How Shutdowns Are Handled

Representative Daniel Webster (R-FL) stated that the decision on how to handle shutdowns would be “up to the members” if he was speaker on Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room.”

Webster was asked, “If you become speaker of the House, what would you do as far as funding for Planned Parenthood, or extending raising the nation’s debt? Would you be willing to go so far as to shut down the federal government to do — to get those issues resolved, from your perspective?”

He responded, “Well, those questions are for the old power-based system, where the top of the pyramid of power made all the decisions. My job as speaker is to unite us, and let the committee structure and the committee work, and the members use that process that we have here now, and take the rules that we have, and produce product. That would be up to them. It’s up to the members. It’s up to a majority vote on the floor. That’s what I support. I don’t want to get entrapped into these issues where we wait right until the last minute, the last end of the day. I want to take those important issues up first, so we don’t have this pressing [deadline] all the time. And that’s what I believe to be is a principle-based system.”

Anchor Wolf Blitzer then asked, “So you’re not ruling out necessarily another government shutdown?”

Webster answered, “No. I think we stay away from those by doing our work, and if we do our work up front, we don’t even run into these government shutdown issues.”

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