Washington – As the 2000 presidential recount battle raged in Florida, a Washington lawyer named John G. Roberts Jr. traveled to Tallahassee, the state capital, to dispense legal advice.
He operated in the shadows during at least some of those 37 days, never signing a legal brief and rarely making an appearance at the makeshift headquarters for George W. Bush’s legal team.
But now Roberts has been selected for the very Supreme Court that settled the recount by putting Bush into office – chosen by the president to replace the swing vote in the 5-4 decision.
And his work in Florida during that time is suddenly coming into focus, giving critics some ammunition to paint a respected jurist with an apparently unblemished legal career as an ideological partisan.
Republican lawyers who worked on the recount said Wednesday that Roberts advised Gov. Jeb Bush on the role that he and the Florida Legislature might play in the recount battle.
At the time, when GOP officials feared that Vice President Al Gore might win a recount battle in court, Republican state lawmakers were devising a plan to use their constitutional power to simply assign the state’s electoral votes to Bush – a plan that drew a sharp rebuke from Democrats.
Responding to questions Wednesday about Roberts’ role in Florida, a spokesman for Gov. Bush’s office said that Roberts had been recommended to the governor, although he gave no further specifics, and that the two had not known each other until the recount.
“Mr. Roberts, one of the pre- eminent constitutional attorneys in the country, came to Florida in 2000 at his own expense and met with Gov. Bush to share what he believed the governor’s responsibilities were under federal law after a presidential election and a presidential election under dispute,” said the spokesman, Jacob DiPietre.
It is not clear how much time Roberts spent in Tallahassee or what exactly he told the governor. Lawyers and others who worked on the Bush campaign’s behalf said Wednesday that they have little, if any, recollection of Roberts from that period.
