WASHINGTON -- The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-5 today to support John G. Roberts Jr. as the nation's next Chief Justice, an action that sends his nomination to the Senate floor for consideration next week.

Democrats are divided over the Roberts nomination. Three of them -- the committee's ranking Democrat, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, and Wisconsin Sens. Herb Kohl and Russell D. Feingold -- joined the committee's 10 Republicans in giving Roberts a favorable recommendation, a move the committee's Republicans praised as "courageous."

But five committee Democrats said they had concluded they could not be sure Roberts would protect a woman's right to an abortion, disability rights, or the autonomy of Americans in making decisions such as whether a patient can be disconnected from artificial medical devices keeping them alive.

Sens. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said they were both extremely troubled after the hearings when they went back and compared Roberts' responses to those of now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings.

They both noted that Roberts used a phrase identical to one used by Thomas -- that he had "no quarrel" with certain cases affecting privacy rights, for example. But after Thomas was seated on the court, he went on to ridicule some of the very same cases with which he said he had "no quarrel."

Schumer and Feinstein also said they were concerned that Roberts would not say there was a "general right to privacy," an underpinning of a woman's right to an abortion.

"Judge Roberts is clearly brilliant. His demeanor suggests he well might not be an ideologue. But he did not make the case strongly enough to bet the whole house," Schumer said. "There is a reasonable danger that he will be like Justice Thomas, the most radical justice on the Supreme Court.

"It is not that I am certain that he will be a Thomas, it's not even that it's more than 50 percent, but the risk that he might be a Thomas . . . is too great to bear. The court's balance may be for decades tipped radically in one direction," Schumer said.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the assistant minority leader from Illinois, who voted against Roberts' nomination to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2003, said Roberts did not tell the committee enough about what he believed and had failed to distance himself from controversial memos he had written as a young lawyer.

"I promised John Roberts in this process I would give him a clean slate. I did. But at the end of the process, sadly, it was largely an empty slate," Durbin said.

Many minds today were clearly on the next nomination. But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said today he did not expect the president to appoint a nominee to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor until after senators have cast their final vote, which will be no later than next Thursday. At least eight Democrats have now said they will either support Roberts or are leaning heavily toward voting for him. The Supreme Court begins its new term on Oct. 3.

In the context of discussion of the next nomination, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said today that the president "hasn't even made a decision on who will be his nominee for the vacancy on the Supreme Court."

More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.