With Congress set to convene in two days, senators were still undecided yesterday on how to proceed with the impeachment trial of President Clinton.
Senators had not reached a consensus on whether to conduct a full-blown trial with witnesses or a truncated version that would allow some presentation of evidence but would require a quick procedural vote on whether to continue.
Still up in the air was whether the Senate could censure Mr Clinton if he is not convicted in a trial, whether an agreement could be reached that would satisfy both Republicans and Democrats and whether Mr Clinton should postpone his scheduled State of the Union address before Congress on January 19th.
"We have a very short window here to try to work out a procedure for this trial," Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, said on Sunday. "If we don't, we are going to descend, I fear, into the kind of partisan rancour that characterised the House proceeding."
The House of Representatives late last year passed on nearly straight party votes two articles of impeachment against Mr Clinton, claiming he perjured himself and obstructed justice in his handling of the Monica Lewinsky affair.
The Senate must deal with those articles and is expected to start the process before the week is out. A majority of two-thirds of the Senate must vote to convict in order to remove a president from office.
Much of the Senate drama has been played out so far while members have been out across the country for the holidays. Tomorrow they return to be sworn in as the 106th Congress.
Republicans and Democrats plan to meet for the first time tomorrow or Thursday to try to reach agreement on what to do next - a process with little precedent since this is only the second presidential trial in history and the first in more than 130 years.
Senators from both parties flooded the television talk shows on Sunday, with a plan put forward by Mr Lieberman and Senator Slade Gorton, a Washington Republican, and circulated by the parties' leaders the main focus of discussion.
Under that plan, the Senate for three days would hear the case against Mr Clinton and his defence and then vote on the fourth day on whether the case against him met the constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanours.
Most Democrats seem to agree with Senator Robert Torricelli, a New Jersey Democrat, who called the proposal a "working blueprint" that could help wrap up an issue that polls show many Americans are tired of. Some Republicans like Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi supported the idea.
However other Republicans, ranging from conservative Senator Phil Gramm of Texas to moderate Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, wanted a full trial even if it was unlikely that 67 senators would end up voting to convict Mr Clinton.
"The constitution calls for a trial," Mr Specter said, emphasising his desire to hear directly from the president.
Several senators, both Republican and Democrat, said it would be unseemly for Mr Clinton to deliver his State of the Union address before Congress while he is on trial. They said that unless the trial is over or appears to be going on for some time, Mr Clinton should consider changing the date or just sending up the message and not delivering it in person. Others, however, said the business of the nation should go on.
"Just because it happens to present an awkward moment for us, I think, is not determinative," said Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "He ought to come on up and give his State of the Union message. If we're not finished, we're not finished, and we'll finish when we get through."
White House spokesman Mr Joe Lockhart said yesterday that Mr Clinton planned to go ahead with giving the speech, but he did not rule out the president adjusting his schedule once the Senate figured out its plans.