A school voucher initiative for the District advanced through the House Appropriations Committee yesterday with $ 10 million in funding, and Senate appropriators put finishing touches on a $ 40 million plan that would include money for the District's public schools and public charter schools.

The action came amid fierce partisan maneuvering, however, as Democratic opposition to President Bush's education choice program appeared to solidify in the Senate with threats of a filibuster.

"Students in the District of Columbia deserve a good education, and voucher plans will not provide it, said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. "Scarce public funds should be used to pay for public schools, not to pay for a small number of students to attend private schools."

Although a decision has not been made, a Senate Democratic aide said, "we're working our votes, and we're optimistic we have the votes necessary to defeat a voucher proposal on the Senate floor." Under Senate rules, 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster.

But supporters of the voucher plan hailed yesterday's vote by the House committee and a possible bipartisan deal in the Senate Appropriations Committee as important steps toward the president's goal.

In a contentious session, the House panel approved the District's $ 5.4 billion budget for fiscal 2004 after rejecting, 32 to 24, a Democratic attempt to strip out the $ 10 million in voucher funds and send the money to public education instead. The bill could reach the House floor next week.

Voucher funds would go toward "opportunity scholarships" proposed in separate legislation by Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.). The House voucher bill would provide grants of as much as $ 7,500 for low-income children to attend private or parochial schools in the District.

Rep. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on the District, defended the voucher plan, citing the city school system's history of low test scores, financial scandal and flight to private schools by children from higher-income families. "The bottom line is the District's schoolchildren will be helped by giving children and their parents more choice," he said.

Rep. David Joseph Weldon (R-Fla.) espoused the broader purpose of creating a national policy laboratory in the District, saying that any gain for city schoolchildren would be a "spinoff" benefit. "The goal here actually is to get a pilot project established so we can get data and answer these questions, 'Is it better?' " Weldon said.

Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) said Republicans were imposing on the District -- which lacks a vote in Congress -- a policy they would not test on their own constituents. Rep. Martin O. Sabo (D-Minn.) said the program did nothing to address the underlying economic disparities and social segregation that are prime predictors of failing public schools.

Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) said the program would send tax dollars to entities that discriminate on religious grounds and to schools that do not meet accountability standards set in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a national education reform program.

"We need better public schools as it is. The last thing we want to do is take meager resources away," Fattah said.

In the Senate, where appropriators will take up the District budget tomorrow, negotiators prepared a plan that would evenly split $ 40 million between vouchers, public schools and public charter schools, as requested by Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D). Although details were being worked out, the Senate version would include a nondiscrimination clause and would favor including siblings from families that already had one child in the voucher program, congressional sources said.

In other areas, the House panel voted, 37 to 21, for a new budget rider that would bar D.C. officials from appealing the dismissal of a lawsuit intended to hold gun manufacturers and distributors financially liable for the deaths of shooting victims. A D.C. Superior Court judge in December rejected the suit, filed by the D.C. government and victims of gun violence.

Committee officials and lobbyists for the District also were watching to see whether Weldon or other conservative members would try on the House floor to pass a ban on gay marriage in the District or to strip out a budget provision that allows the District to offer benefits to same-sex couples and other registered domestic partners.

At least 35 states have enacted "defense of marriage" laws backed by groups that say legislation adopted in Vermont to recognize civil unions between gay partners and a recent Supreme Court decision striking down sodomy laws could lead to recognition of same-sex marriages.

District officials say such a preemptive ban is unnecessary because no local recognition is being contemplated.