US: Senate majority leader Bill Frist invited a rather unusual visitor to dinner at his home in Washington last night - minority leader Senator Harry Reid, with whom he is locked in a bitter dispute about President George Bush's judicial nominees.
The social get-together comes as both sides seek a last-minute compromise to avoid open warfare over a Republican plan to get rid of the filibuster.
Both parties claimed yesterday to have enough votes to win a showdown on the minority party's right to use the filibuster to block a president's judicial nominees. The crisis is expected to come to a head on Wednesday when Senator Frist calls for a vote on the nominations of Texas judge Priscilla Owen and California judge Janice Rogers Brown to the federal appeals court.
They and five others were blocked by a Democratic filibuster during Mr Bush's first term. If the filibuster is used again, Dr Frist said he would call on the Senate to vote on whether to ban use of filibusters against judicial nominees - a move known as the "nuclear option".
Democrats have threatened in retaliation to bring the business of the Senate to a halt. Republicans hold 55 seats in the 100-member Senate. Dr Frist needs 60 votes to end a filibuster once it gets under way, but only 50 votes to change the rules and abolish judicial filibusters.
In the event of a tie Vice-President Dick Cheney would cast the deciding vote.
Some Republicans like Senator John McCain have broken ranks, saying they might need the filibuster in the future.
Senator Edward Kennedy told CBS Democrats "should not accept a compromise that's going to silence and muzzle and gag a member of the Senate to express their conscience on an issue of a lifetime judge.".
Senator Joseph Biden also called for a compromise, telling NBC that 208 judges nominated by Mr Bush had already been approved; the fight was about "radical additions."
The judges blocked by Democrats are all strongly conservative and have the backing of the evangelical right. A poll in Time magazine yesterday showed that 59 per cent of those surveyed felt the filibuster should be retained.
The row has delayed a vote on the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the UN.