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.
OK, so they only talked for 30-40 minutes, but still--the point is, he was helping the Repubs win, as opposed to doing what he should have been doing which was helping the state of Florida find out who the legal winner was.
Of course, this never was done.
And no, I don't count a bunch of newspapers going down there and finding that Bush got the most votes a "legal win" for Bush. Nor do I find a bunch of newspapers going down to Florida and finding that Gore got most of the votes.
I like my elections to be proper, official, handled by public, transparent government, not like elections in America today. Not like 2000 or 2004 when there were so many doubts the lack of a proper investigation into both elections speaks to how little the USGov cares about its people and the very laws it says it is there to make and uphold.
The above quote, by the way, comes to us from [http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12183379.htm|a Miami Herald article] posted at Miami.com.
Again, I know it was just 30 minutes or so, but it still bugs me.
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