Roberts Nomination Sent To Full Senate

The official tally of 13-5 was anticlimatic, with the committee's 10 majority Republicans lined up solidly behind the conservative judge's nomination to the full Senate weeks in advance.

But the decision by three Democrats to join Republican efforts to make Roberts the nation's 109th Supreme Court justice outlined the division in the minority caucus over whether Democrats can, or should, mount even symbolic opposition to Roberts to send President Bush a message on his next Supreme Court nomination.

Five Democrats - Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Joseph Biden of Delaware, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Charles Schumer of New York and Dick
Durbin of Illinois - opposed Roberts in the final vote, and many of the arguments merged with senators' worries about the upcoming replacement for the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor.