ORLANDO, Fla. – Daniel Webster, the Florida lawmaker who has represented our area in Congress since 2011, will not seek reelection.
The Republican, who turned 77 on Monday, announced in a news release that “the time has come to pass the torch to the next conservative leader and spend more precious time with my wife, children, and 24 grandchildren.”
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Webster is an engineer who runs his family’s air conditioning and heating business. He served in the Florida House from 1980 to 1998, and the Florida Senate from 1998 to 2008.
Webster served as both Florida House speaker and Senate president.
In the news release, Webster called himself the “architect of Florida’s Republican majority,” and the “grandfather of home education and school choice in Florida.” He sponsored the 1985 Home Education Program Act, which legalized homeschooling in Florida.
While in the Florida Senate, Webster was a champion of abortion restrictions, pushing a bill to require women having an abortion to undergo an ultrasound and requiring minors to notify their legal guardians before receiving an abortion.
State Road 429, which runs from Lake County into Osceola County, is named the Daniel Webster Western Beltway after him.
Webster was elected to the U.S. House in 2011, and he’s consistently won reelection since then. He currently represents U.S. House District 11, which includes western Orange County, southern Lake County, Sumter County, and parts of Seminole and Polk counties.
Webster says he still hopes to pass a reauthorization bill for transportation and infrastructure before he leaves the House.