John Roberts will be the next chief justice of the United States. He will not, however, get through either the Senate Judiciary Committee or the full Senate without significant opposition.

The committee has become so polarized that the vote may break nearly along party lines, and committee opposition will encourage other no votes in the Senate. But this significant opposition is unlikely to derail this nomination or signal trouble for the next.

The last vote cast against a Supreme Court nominee in the Senate Judiciary Committee came in 1991, during the nomination of Clarence Thomas. Given today’s atmosphere, it is hard to believe that Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993) and Stephen Breyer (1994) were reported out of committee unanimously. Ginsburg was confirmed by the full Senate 96-3 and Breyer 87-9.

Roberts is a conservative version of Ginsburg and Breyer: well known and admired in his profession, moderate in temperament and respected by colleagues in the other party. So why won’t Roberts go through the committee unanimously or through the Senate with token opposition?

Two reasons. First, over the past 30 years, the membership of the committee has become more polarized, with very few moderates from either party. Second, the poisonous atmosphere around the judicial process has deteriorated with the extension of nominations battles to circuit-court nominees and the regular involvement of interest groups on both sides.

Consider the Senate Judiciary Committee. There are really only two true moderates: Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Mike DeWine (R-Ohio). Using National Journal’s Senate rankings from 2004, five of the nine Republicans were among the 15 most conservative in the Senate (freshman Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), clearly a conservative, albeit a maverick, is the 10th Republican on the panel). And five of the eight Democrats are among the 15 most liberal senators. Of the 18 senators on the committee, only Specter hails from a state won by the presidential candidate of the other party. Contrast that with past Judiciary Committees, which had numerous moderate potential swing votes.

The committee has also been at the forefront of the escalating war over judges. The past 20 years have seen more scrutiny and opposition to lower-court nominees, including the denial or delay of hearings, Senate holds and the filibustering of appeals-court judges.

It is unlikely that President Bush could have made a choice for the court more acceptable to both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate than Roberts, but the likely opposition in committee and two dozen or so votes against him in the full Senate show that even the best nominees will get significant opposition.

The real battle will be over the soon-to-be-named second nominee. Bush will undoubtedly appoint someone more conservative than retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, thus shifting the court to the right. But at the end of the day, while there may well be more significant opposition to this pick than to Roberts, it is highly unlikely that Democrats will generate enough opposition to defeat that nomination. Even if all but a few Democrats vote against the choice, there is little likelihood of a filibuster. Democratic members of the Gang of 14 that crafted the nominations deal this summer will be reluctant to filibuster, and Republicans signatories would likely view a Democratic filibuster as bad faith and vote with other Republicans to eliminate the filibuster from Senate rules.

So the next month will see significant opposition to Roberts and to O’Connor’s successor, but not enough to keep them off the court.

Fortier is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.