SACRAMENTO - The House of Representatives on Friday officially condemned President Bush's decision to send another 21,500 troops to Iraq, capping four days of speeches that hewed closely to party lines.

The final vote on the largely symbolic resolution opposing the increase was 246-182, with 17 Republicans voting with the majority Democrats. Two Democrats sided with the GOP.

All 10 representatives from the Central Valley stuck to their party's position: Reps. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, and Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, voted for the resolution, while Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River, voted against it. Lungren represents the Mother Lode.

Shortly after the vote, Democrats said their next move would be to challenge Bush's request for $93 billion in new funds for the Pentagon.

The U.S. Senate is expected to debate the measure today, but it is not likely Democrats there can convince enough Republicans to side with them to avoid a filibuster. This is the threat - essentially talking a bill to death - that scuttled the Senate's earlier attempt to censure the president for sending more troops into Iraq.

Bush made no comment on the resolution, and his spokesman said the president was too busy to watch the proceedings on television.

Congress' talkathon unfolded as a new poll showed more than half those surveyed view the war as a hopeless cause. Nearly two-thirds of voters oppose Bush's decision to dispatch more troops, although support for his plan has risen in the past few weeks from 26 percent to 35 percent, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Three hundred and twenty-seven Californians have died in the Iraq war, according to casualty lists from the Department of Defense. That includes 54 from the Central Valley and 13 from San Joaquin County.

Nearly all of the House's 434 lawmakers (one representative died last week) spoke during 44 hours of speechifying. The views of Cardoza, McNerney and Lungren are typical:

"Like most Americans, I am deeply dismayed by this administration's inept prosecution of this war," Cardoza said on the House floor earlier this week. "The American people and our military did not sign up for refereeing a civil war halfway across the planet."

McNerney's son, Michael, served in Iraq; Michael's girlfriend is still over there. Jerry McNerney said this proximity to the conflict - as well as the unusual number of soldiers and Marines from the 11th District who have fallen - has made the debate very personal to him. He says bowing to Bush's demands without protest is unconscionable.

"It's our duty as the Congress of this great nation to check and balance the power of the president on any issue we believe harmful to our country," McNerney said on the House floor. "The president's plan to escalate the war in Iraq will not bring success there or make the United States more secure.

"In fact, the proposal means a further distraction from the mission in Afghanistan and the need for a tougher, smarter approach to the global war on terrorism."

Lungren said all the Democrats did was pass a toothless resolution. "What we voted on was meaningless," Lungren said. "It sends a hollow message to our troops. If we were serious, put funding restrictions on the implementation of the plan."

Lungren says initial results of the escalation appear positive: Iraq has pledged to step up its own security work, and the majority Shiites have said they will share the nation's oil profits with the Sunni and Kurdish minorities.

He said the resolution could not have come at a worse time.

"Give the plan a chance," Lungren said in an interview Friday. "We are trying to do what many of the critics have suggested we do."