Proponents want a vote this week or next, and they say they believe they have enough senators to overcome a filibuster and get the measure passed.

"When push comes to shove, people are not just going to deny this vote," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told reporters Tuesday.

But as the Senate heads into its final sprint before the Aug. 3 vacation start, it still has a lot of work to do, including the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, children's health care insurance reauthorization, ethics and lobbying reform and an override vote on President Bush's veto on stem cell research.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is "absolutely committed" to getting a vote as soon as possible on the D.C.-Utah bill, his office said Tuesday. But Republicans, many of whom oppose the bill on constitutional grounds, are putting up a fight.

The measure is primarily designed to get the nearly 600,000 residents of the Democratic-haven of the District of Columbia their first full-voting House member, but Utah, a Republican stronghold, was added to make the bill politically neutral. The state barely missed out on a fourth House seat after the 2000 Census.

Supporters in Washington were stepping up their lobbying efforts this week hoping to persuade enough senators to back the bill when it gets a vote. Special phone numbers were set up Tuesday so people across America could call and speak to their senators' offices, and a march outside Senate office buildings was planned for today.

Those pushing the bill say the ability for the district's residents to vote was akin to civil rights legislation of the past.

"Voting is the language of democracy," said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "So if you don't vote, you don't count."

Opponents of the effort - including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell - say the Constitution is clear that only residents of states get voting representation. Several Republicans used that argument in the House and Senate committee in an attempt to kill the move.

Even if the bill can squeak by the Senate before August, supporters face another obstacle in the White House.

Bush's advisers say they will counsel their boss to veto the bill because it is unconstitutional.

Hatch, a former Judiciary Committee chairman, says the bill is on "firm" constitutional ground and believes the president will sign it.

"It would be pathetic if we didn't pass this," Hatch said.

Henderson says there are still several days left before the recess begins and the Senate can take up the bill and pass it before the clock runs out. "We think that there is still time to modify the calendar," he said.

And if not, Henderson said, it isn't "fatal" to the bill if it gets pushed off until later this year.

tburr@stlrib.com