MOBILE, Ala. — The nation’s governors moved Sunday toward endorsing a Democratic-led call for a national commission to investigate the savings-and-loan crisis in what one governor called a “vote of no confidence” in the federal response so far.

On a day when the National Governors’ Association broke from its normal bipartisan consensus, the group’s executive committee voted to send the full governors a resolution to investigate the S&L bailout and find a way for “equitable recovery” of taxpayer money spent on the bailout.

The action came on a busy opening day of the governors’ annual summer conference, which concludes Tuesday.

Michigan Gov. James Blanchard, a Democrat, predicted Congress and President Bush would ignore the S&L request, directed at them.

But he said the statement amounted to “a vote of no confidence in federal action” on S&Ls.

“It’s really a way to say we don’t have a lot of confidence in what’s happening so far,” Blanchard said.

Republican governors mounted a futile effort to strip the recommendation of a commission from a statement of concern over the S&Ls. Gov. Garrey Carruthers of New Mexico called it “a feel-good” vote, and Gov. John Ashcroft of Missouri said it would only delay any solution.

“We don’t need rocket scientists and commissions — we need action,” Ashcroft said.

The vote came after the governors divided in a partisan dispute on education — a subject on which they previously had voiced only consensus — before tentatively agreeing on the makeup of a panel that would grade states on their progress in education.

At Democrats insistence, they added a provision that the panel also vote on the federal government’s progress toward meeting education goals.