WASHINGTON — Senator Harry Reid of Nevada took a defiant and uncompromising stand on Monday before a showdown on the future of the filibuster, saying that Republicans must stop blocking executive branch nominations or he will try to change rules to "save the Senate from becoming obsolete."
But senators emerged from a three-and a-half-hour meeting in the Old Senate Chamber saying they were confident that an agreement could be reached Tuesday to defuse the tense partisan standoff, though no deal had been struck in the closed session that went well into the night.
Democratic and Republican leaders promised to continue negotiating, but Mr. Reid, the majority leader, said the first test vote was still scheduled for Tuesday morning.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, said, "There's no deal, but there's a much better understanding."
All but two of the 100 senators cloistered themselves in the Old Senate Chamber, where some of the great compromises of the early days of the nation were struck and where modern Senates have met at difficult moments, including the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
Senators said nearly all of them spoke, some passionately, for or against a change to the rules, which would ostensibly only end filibusters of presidential nominees for executive branch positions but could possibly pave the way to further limit the filibuster in the future.
Advocates of the change said Democrats would stay the course for a showdown on Tuesday. "It was a very good discussion, but at this point, we're headed to votes" that will probably trigger the change, said Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico and a leading advocate of weakening the filibuster.
Most other senators said they thought their leaders would bring them back from the brink.
A spokesman for Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said, "A clear bipartisan majority in the meeting believed the leaders ought to find a solution."
"We just need to give them 24 hours," said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee.
Senators from both parties said they were seeking an alternative to Mr. Reid's vow to ask a majority of members to ban filibusters against executive nominations, though he would leave the storied procedural option intact for judicial nominees and legislation.
"This is a moment in history where circumstances dictate the need for change," Mr. Reid said in a speech at the liberal Center for American Progress. He suggested that the only way for Republicans to avoid the rules change was to acquiesce to straight up-or-down votes on Tuesday on seven nominees in question and stop filibustering executive nominations in the future.
"I love the Senate, but right now the Senate is broken and needs to be fixed," he said.
Republicans expressed outrage at the proposal and promised to retaliate. But for a Senate that has increasingly found itself tied in procedural knots, the decisions at hand were potentially momentous. Republicans to the last minute were preparing offers of compromise, but Democratic leaders said they had the votes and the wherewithal to pull the trigger on the most significant change since the early 1970s in the way the Senate operates.
Although Mr. Reid insisted that the change was extremely narrow, it had the potential to be the beginning of the end of the filibuster — and to eliminate the need for supermajorities to get anything done in Congress's upper chamber.
Mr. Reid's position could be a bluff to gain leverage to force the nominees through. Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, both Republicans, were in negotiations with two Democrats, Carl Levin of Michigan and Max Baucus of Montana, to find a way out. But most senators said it was now up to Senators Reid and McConnell.
"I want a solution," Mr. Baucus said. "That's by far better for everyone, by far."
After the meeting, Mr. McConnell offered Democrats up-or-down votes on all seven contested nominations in exchange for a promise to drop the rule-change threat. Mr. Reid demanded a pledge not to filibuster future nominations. Both sides balked, according to aides familiar with the exchange.
Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting.
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