payback

Well, isn't this convenient.

U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts provided legal advice to Gov. Jeb Bush in the weeks following the November 2000 election as part of the effort to make sure the governor's brother won the disputed presidential vote.

Roberts, at the time a private attorney in Washington, D.C., came to Tallahassee to advise the state's Republican administration as it was trying to prevent a Democratic end-run that the GOP feared might give the election to Al Gore, sources told The Herald.

The maneuver, which the Democrats never attempted, might have kept the state from sending its list of official "electors" -- the Electoral College members who actually cast the votes that count -- to Congress and the National Archives.

If the names were not forwarded to Washington in a timely fashion, Republicans feared, Gore might be declared the winner because Florida's 25 electoral votes wouldn't be counted -- and the Democrat had garnered more electoral votes than George W. Bush in the rest of the country.

Roberts, himself a noted constitutional lawyer, and an unnamed law professor spent between 30 and 40 minutes talking to Bush in the governor's conference room, sources told The Herald.

Roberts' perceived partisanship during the recount has been enough for some Democrats to suggest that his nomination should be rejected by the U.S. Senate.

. . .

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, a Boca Raton Democrat, seized on Roberts' participation in the 2000 recount and suggested it should be grounds for rejecting his nomination. Wexler suggested the nomination "threw salt on the wounds of the thousands of Floridians whose voting rights were disenfranchised during the 2000 election.

"Judge Roberts worked to ensure that George Bush would become president -- regardless of what the courts might decide," Wexler said, relying on news accounts that suggested Roberts gave the governor advice on how the state Legislature could name Bush the winner. "And now he is being rewarded for that partisan service by being appointed to the nation's highest court."

Story from Miami Herald (registration required), or Common Dreams.