Confirmation Path May Run Through Florida

Paying off a political debt?--Dictynna

Roberts' low-profile role as an advisor to Republicans during the 2000 presidential recount fight is likely to be closely scrutinized.
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer

July 21, 2005

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 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 put Bush into office by settling the recount, chosen by the president to replace the swing vote in that 5-4 decision. And his work in Florida during that time is coming into focus, giving critics some ammunition to paint a respected jurist with an apparently unblemished legal career as an ideological partisan.