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Roland Burris, the man picked by embattled Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich to take President-elect Barack Obama's seat, appears today to be moving closer to winning an unusual showdown with Senate Democratic leaders.

A day after Burris's attempt to join the Senate was rejected by the chamber, Sen.  Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev). said Senate leaders are waiting for a ruling from the Illinois Supreme Court on whether the Illinois secretary of state must certify Burris's appointment by signing a document that is transmitted to the Senate. He suggested that decision could come as early as today or tomorrow and that the Senate would move quickly on a decision after that.

Reid, softening his tough rhetoric about not seating Burris and offering very warm praise for him after meeting the former Illinois attorney general for the first time this morning, said he hoped a decision could "come sooner rather than later."

Earlier this morning, House Majority Whip  Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), one of the most influential black members of Congress, said "I think he will be seated" on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

Senate Democrats, once sharply opposed to allowing Burris to be seated because he was appointed by Blagojevich (D), are considering allowing him to serve as a way to end a confrontation that could drag on for weeks and distract from what they hope will be an end to a decade of gridlock on Capitol Hill. One idea being considered, Democratic officials said yesterday, is allowing Burris to be seated if he agrees not to run for election in 2010, allowing the party to recruit another candidate to defend the seat (Burris has lost multiple statewide races in Illinois).

Two of the most prominent African Americans in the House -- Clyburn and  Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), who had aspired to the Senate seat -- both said yesterday that they think the law stands behind Burris, who would replace Obama as the only African American member of the Senate.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) broke ranks to back Burris yesterday afternoon.

In a news conference this morning, Obama said he would accept Burris as his replacement in the Senate.

"This is a Senate matter. But I know Roland Burris, obviously; he's from my home state. I think he's a fine public servant. If he gets seated then I'm going to work with Roland Burris, just like I work with all the other senators," Obama said at a press conference at his transition headquarters.

Burris, 71 and a former state attorney general, had pressed his case yesterday at the Senate over the objections of Democrats there and Obama. Once formally rejected, he found himself holding a news conference on the lawn outside the Capitol just minutes before new senators were sworn in. The man who has already had his own mausoleum constructed in Illinois showed no signs of backing down.

"He thinks he's got a shot, and he's an ambitious guy with a large ego," Don Rose, a political consultant in Chicago who has known Burris since the 1960s, said yesterday. "I'm not sure that separates him from anybody in the Senate. . . . He's paid a lot of dues, and he may feel he's paid his dues."

Despite being selected by Blagojevich, who is under investigation on corruption charges that include allegations that he sought to sell Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder, Burris has said in recent days that he will accept no compromise that would limit his rights as a senator. He called his appointment "what the Lord has ordained," and his visit to the Capitol suggested Burris would let nothing stop him from adding "U.S. senator" to the list of accomplishments on his mausoleum in Chicago.

But Burris shunned confrontation, despite the impasse over the seat. He left after his meeting with Reid and Durbin quietly, without talking to reporters. Yesterday, with several advisers in tow, including former Baltimore mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, Burris was denied the privileges given to senators and was required to go through a metal detector at the visitors' entrance to the Capitol. The senator-designate hugged the man in charge of making sure he would not enter the Senate chamber, Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance W. Gainer, whom he has known for years from their mutual time in Illinois politics.

Congressional Democrats and the White House yesterday settled on a plan to rush $15 billion in emergency loans to the cash-strapped Detroit automakers and were working into the night to resolve final disputes over the conditions the government should attach to the money.

Under the plan, unveiled by Democratic leaders, the Treasury Department would cut checks for the car companies as soon as next week. The proposal also calls for President Bush to name a "car czar" to manage a vast restructuring of the firms and restore them to profitability.

Democrats bent to the will of the president on several key demands, most notably in agreeing that the emergency funding would be drawn from an existing loan program aimed at promoting fuel-efficient technologies.

Still, the White House objected yesterday to several elements of the Democratic proposal, congressional aides said, including requirements that the car companies notify Washington of any transaction of more than $25 million and that they pull out of lawsuits against states seeking to enforce tougher tailpipe-emissions standards.

Under the proposal, the car companies would be required to submit detailed plans for restructuring by March 31, when they would be eligible for additional government assistance. The Bush administration was pressing to strengthen those provisions to make clear that only companies that were either financially viable or taking steps to achieve viability could receive more federal cash.

In a statement, White House press secretary Dana Perino said the two sides had "made a lot of progress in recent days" and that discussions were continuing over how to "help automakers restructure and achieve long-term viability."

"Long-term financing must be conditioned on the principle that taxpayers should only assist automakers executing a credible plan for long-term viability," Perino said.

Appearing briefly before reporters, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Democrats, too, are determined to force changes in the domestic auto industry, which had been losing customers to more nimble foreign competitors even before a deepening recession slashed demand for new cars to the lowest level in 25 years.

"Come March 31, it is our hope that there will be a viable automotive industry in our country with transparency and accountability to the taxpayer. We think that is possible," Pelosi said, adding that auto company executives, their employees, their shareholders and their network of local dealers all will be expected to make concessions.

"We call this a barbershop," Pelosi said. "Everyone is getting haircuts."

Talks continued late yesterday in Pelosi's Capitol Hill offices. Despite the administration's last-minute objections, both sides remained optimistic that a deal could be finalized and quickly presented to lawmakers for a vote.

"It is overwhelmingly likely that a bill will be on the president's desk by the end of the week," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, whose staff was taking the lead in drafting the measure.

Facing an increasingly ominous economic outlook, President-elect Barack Obama and other Democrats are rapidly ratcheting up plans for a massive fiscal stimulus program that could total as much as $700 billion over the next two years.

That amount, more than the nation has spent over the past six years in Iraq, would rival the sum Congress committed last month to rescuing the country's financial system. It would also be one of the biggest public spending programs aimed at jolting the economy since President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.

Hints of a hefty new spending program began emerging last week. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D), an Obama adviser, and Harvard economist Lawrence H. Summers, whom Obama has chosen to lead his White House economic team, both raised the possibility of $700 billion in new spending. Yesterday, Obama adviser and former Clinton administration Labor secretary Robert Reich and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) also called for spending in the range of $500 billion to $700 billion.

Transition officials would not confirm that they are considering spending of that magnitude, but they made clear that economic conditions are dire, and suggested that Obama might be forced to delay his pledge to repeal President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.

Last week, Goldman Sachs said it expects the economy to shrink even faster by the end of the year, at a 5 percent annualized rate. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 5.3 percent for the week; and the nation's largest bank, Citigroup, sought government assistance to avoid collapse.

While Obama has set a goal of creating or preserving 2.5 million jobs by 2011, his economic team -- whose members are scheduled to be formally introduced at a news conference today in Chicago -- have yet to decide how that would be accomplished or how much it would cost.

Still, Austan Goolsbee, a spokesman for Obama on economic issues who is in line to serve on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, yesterday acknowledged that Obama's jobs plan will cost substantially more than the $175 billion stimulus program he proposed during the campaign.

"This is as big of an economic crisis as we've faced in 75 years. And we've got to do something that's up to the task of confronting that," Goolsbee said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "I don't know what the exact number is, but it's going to be a big number."

Republicans quickly criticized the idea of such a vast initiative, saying Congress should instead cut taxes to spur economic growth.

"Democrats can't seem to stop trying to outbid each other -- with the taxpayers' money," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement. "We're in tough economic times. Folks are hurting. But the American people know that more Washington spending isn't the answer."

With financial markets fluctuating wildly and unemployment rising, Democrats want to push a stimulus package through Congress in January and have it ready for Obama's signature when he takes office Jan. 20. Over the weekend, the president-elect announced that he had instructed his advisers to assemble a massive jobs program that also would make a "down payment" on much of his domestic agenda.

The plan would include new funding for public-works projects to repair the nation's crumbling infrastructure, as well as a fresh infusion of cash to promote green technology and alternative-energy sources. It also would include targeted tax cuts for working families, students, the elderly and job-creating businesses that Obama touted on the campaign trail.