WASHINGTON -- After four years and more than 100 hours of debate, the Senate yesterday voted to confirm Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla R. Owen to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

	Gerald Herbert, Associated Press President Bush meets in the White House Oval yesterday with judicial nominee Priscilla Owen, center, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., left. The Senate confirmed Owen's four-year-old Appeals Court nomination. Click photo for larger image.

The vote, 55-43, with one senator voting present and another absent, was a first step toward the resolution of the standoff between Republicans and Democrats over President Bush's most controversial nominees.

That fight almost led Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to push through a rule change barring Democrats from blocking the president's picks to the federal court -- a move so controversial that it became known as "the nuclear option."

Bush, who met with Owen in the Oval Office Tuesday, said in a statement that he applauded the Senate for finally agreeing to confirm his choice.

"She has served with distinction on the Supreme Court of Texas, has demonstrated that she strictly interprets the law and brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit," Bush said. "I urge the Senate to build on this progress and provide my judicial nominees the up-or-down votes they deserve."

The vote to confirm Owen, 50, became possible Monday night when 14 senators struck a deal in which Republican senators agreed to vote against the rule change if Democrats advanced at least three of Bush's most hotly contested nominees, including Owen.

Republicans have attempted four times, since the Democrats began filibustering Bush's nominees in 2003 to shut off debate on Owen's nomination, but failed to muster the necessary 60 votes.

At one point during the debate in 2003, then-Democratic whip Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was asked by a Republican senator how many hours of debate on Owen would be sufficient. Reid replied: "There is not a number in the universe that would be sufficient."

But in the end, even Reid voted for cloture on Owen Tuesday, before voting against her during the up-and-down vote yesterday.

Republicans said yesterday they were pleased that they had chosen Owen as their test case to force the showdown.

"The heated rhetoric, unfounded attacks, and distortions of Justice Priscilla Owen's record over the past four years ended with a whimper," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said.

Cornyn also said approval of Owen had set a new standard and referred to the agreement by the 14 senators earlier this week that judicial nominees should only be filibustered under "extraordinary circumstances."

"It should be well settled now that disagreement over judicial philosophy is not an 'extraordinary circumstance,' " Cornyn said. "I call it the 'Owen precedent.' "

In the last week, Republicans senators have spent hours lauding her accomplishments: from her status as one of the top graduates in her Baylor University law school class to her service as a Sunday school teacher in Austin to the fact that she has received the American Bar Association's highest rating as "well-qualified" each time she has been nominated.

But Democrats have argued that Owen's decisions on the Texas Supreme Court since 1995 have shown that she is "extreme" and "out of the mainstream," and that she has too often sided with business interests. Before joining the Texas court, she specialized in commercial litigation at a Houston law firm that handled many cases for the oil and gas industry.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, said yesterday that giving Owen a lifetime appointment to the bench was an "irrevocable mistake."

Owen, he said, "has consistently ruled in favor of big business and against working people. ... She is an activist judge with a history of rewriting law based on her personal political ideology."

Republicans have suggested that Democratic opposition to Owen has stemmed, in part, from her close ties to members of the Bush administration.

In 1994, Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, helped her raise money in her first bid for the Texas Supreme Court. She won that race and was re-elected in 2000.

Liberal groups have been highly critical of her judicial opinions. The most frequently cited case is one in 2000 involving the Texas parental consent law on abortion.

In the case, a 17-year old girl was seeking and won permission from judges to get an abortion without the consent of her parents. Under Texas law, a minor was permitted to get an abortion under certain circumstances, including if she could show she was "sufficiently well-informed" and mature enough to understand the consequences.

In her dissent, Owen said the courts had rushed to judgment and that there was evidence that the woman "did not receive adequate counseling about alternatives to abortion and has not given thoughtful consideration to those alternatives."

Alberto Gonzales, who is now U.S. attorney general and was then on the Texas Supreme Court, criticized the view of the dissenting justices, including Owen, saying they were treading into policy decisions that should be left to the state Legislature.

Gonzales has since argued that his remarks have been taken out of context and did not directly apply to Owen.

Paul Rosenzweig, a senior legal research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Owen's appointment is unlikely to significantly alter the balance of power on the 5th Circuit, which oversees Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Rosenzweig said he believed Owen would be in the mainstream of all the Southern circuits, which tend to be more conservative than those in other parts of the country.

In yesterday's vote, senators voted along party lines with the exception of three. West Virginia Democrat Sen. Robert C. Byrd and Louisiana Democrat Mary L. Landrieu voted to confirm Owen; Rhode Island Republican Lincoln D. Chafee voted against her confirmation.

One voting anomaly was a pairing arrangement between Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D- Hawaii. Stevens changed his vote to 'present' to protect Inouye, who was out of town yesterday.

Voting to confirm Owen were Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum, both R-Pa., and Mike DeWine and George V. Voinovich. both R- Ohio.Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., voted against.