Elizabeth Roberts is ready for her close-up After toiling in the vineyards of the state Senate, the well-respected legislator makes her move for lieutenant governor BY IAN DONNIS

ALTHOUGH SHE MADE a relatively late entry into elective politics, not running for public office until she was knocking on 40, Elizabeth H. Roberts was hardly a political dilettante when she first won her state Senate seat in 1996.

A Virginia native who came to Rhode Island to study at Brown University, Roberts became intrigued with health-care issues – a specialty she has avidly pursued during her tenure in the General Assembly — since doing a lab at Roger Williams Hospital as a student. Although a state government handbook lists her current occupation as "homemaker," a situation that has facilitated her ability to focus on legislative issues, it hardly suggests the depth and breadth of her experience.

After graduating from Brown, Roberts earned an MBA from Boston University while working as a researcher at Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket. She went on to work for Blue Cross & Blue Shield, and Telesis, Ira Magaziner’s business-consulting firm, before becoming policy director for former Providence mayor Joseph R. Paolino’s unsuccessful 1990 gubernatorial campaign and then a policy adviser to governor Bruce Sundlun.

By the time when she ran for an open state Senate seat in 1996, Roberts was long since ensconced in Rhode Island — living in Cranston’s Edgewood section, the mother of two daughters, and married to RISD professor Tom Roberts, whose family tree includes former attorney general Dennis J. Roberts II, and the late former governor and Providence mayor Dennis J. Roberts. Now, after patiently building an enviable reputation during more than eight years in the Senate, Roberts is the earliest entry in the 2006 field for lieutenant governor, and some observers see her as an eventual prospect for the state’s top job.

"She is a talented individual with a lot of potential and has been an excellent legislator insofar as she has started out as what we call, in the political science jargon, a work-horse," says Maureen Moakley, chairwoman of the political science department at the University of Rhode Island. "She did her homework, kept a low-key profile, and moved to develop expertise and political credits for her work in the health-care area. She has wisely used that as a launching pad in the race for lieutenant governor."

It’s a measure of Robert’s dedication and genial quality that even Senate Minority Leader Dennis Algiere (R-Westerly), the GOP chief in the Senate, has only admiring things to say about her. "She’s very smart, she’s articulate, and certainly, she’s one who I think does a lot for her constituents," he says. "I’ve always had a good working relationship with her . . . She’s a very hard worker. When she has an issue, she puts a lot of work into it."

Although Roberts has yet to formally announce her campaign, a March 29 fundraiser at Roger Williams Park casino, which brought in more than $50,000 and attracted such luminaries as US Senator Jack Reed and US Representative James R. Langevin, served as a de facto coming out party. The senator, whose district includes Cranston and part of Warwick, is working to build her war chest and broaden her statewide base of contacts.

As in most states, health-care issues are a perennial concern in Rhode Island, and Roberts’ interest in the topic has been on point in recent years. In particular, she is credited with helping to pass the legislation that created a new post of insurance commissioner — something sought by critics of Blue Cross after the insurer’s well-publicized problems in recent years, including extravagant executive compensation — and added legislative appointees to the Blue Cross board. She describes the lieutenant governor’s office as an opportunity to exert a greater influence on a wider range of similar concerns.

In many ways, the bid for higher office seems a natural for Roberts, 48, whose considerable campaign attributes include policy savvy, a neighborly persona, the ability to raise funds, and her distinctive status as a female in Rhode Island’s male-dominated political culture. Although Roberts says she hasn’t been treated differently as a woman in the Senate, a woman has never held the lieutenant governor’s office in the state, and a female hasn’t won a statewide office since Republican general treasurer Nancy Mayer was elected in 1994.

Even though candidates for governor and lieutenant governor don’t run as a duo in Rhode Island, the presence in the race of an intelligent, well-respected, and experienced female contender could add some luster as the current lieutenant governor, Charles Fogarty, tries to retake the governor’s office for the Democrats. In fact, the most recent poll by Brown University political science professor Darrell West, which in February found an 11 percent gap in a match-up between Fogarty and Governor Donald L. Carcieri, suggests how the avuncular Republican incumbent could be more vulnerable than some might expect.

The field for lieutenant governor has yet to take shape, and it’s not yet known whether Roberts will face a primary opponent. On the Republican side, the two most commonly mentioned potential candidates are Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian and Major General Reginald A. Centracchio of the Rhode Island National Guard, whose pending resignation was recently announced. Each of these Republicans would bring certain advantages. But there’s little doubt that a race between Roberts, who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, and Centraccio, who opposes them, would offer, as she says, "an interesting and clear cut choice."