Government Shutdown Enters 4th Day

It looks like the situation in Washington is shaping up to be quite a chess match and with neither side looking to give in completely.

That said, we wanted to know if any outside advice would help solve the shutdown.

6News spoke with an attorney who has experience in negotiations and he says not to expect a quick solution, that is unless one man in particular, can step up to the plate and take charge.

“I think there are always back door deals,” said Attorney Jonathan Raven.

Jonathan Raven has been an attorney and health care executive for over 40 years and says high profile negotiators work towards finding what’s known as a “mutually hurting stalemate.”

“The principals who are the ones we have to rely on to get it done, have to each be feeling sufficient pain to make them want to do something different than doing nothing,” the Fraser Trebilcock Davis & Dunlap P.C. attorney said.

“The problem you have such unusual political streams in this country and such an unusual dynamic, that it’s keeping the leadership from doing what it is well equipped to do, what it knows how to do.”Raven says clearly that hasn’t happened yet in Washington, but says it could be solved by having the likes of vice president Joe Biden or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell step in as a mediator.

So ultimately Raven says it will come down to the president taking charge.

“He’ll take them away from the media, he’ll take them away from the chattering throngs of extremists and he’ll let them be the state’s-people that we elected them to be,” Raven said.

But Raven says that doesn’t mean your voice has lost its value and urges you at home to keep calling your senators and congressmen.

“Hopefully we’ll end up with the public and congress being stronger because of it, but we are getting weaker by the minute until they resolve the problems,” Raven said.


Story originally written by Reporter Nick Perreault, and aired on WLNS-TV6 on October 3, 2013.