WASHINGTON (AP) - Both sides in the debate over Senate filibusters of judicial nominees claim to have enough support to prevail on a vote to ban the practice, even as the parties' leaders acknowledge that several Republicans senators they are courting have yet to commit.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., intends this week to call up for a vote the nominations of judges Priscilla Owen of Texas and Janice Rogers Brown of California. President Bush nominated both for the federal bench during his first term, but they and five others were blocked by Democrats. Bush renominated all seven judges this year.

Should Democrats move this week to block Brown and Owen, and Republicans fail to break a filibuster, Frist would call for the Senate to vote on whether to ban use of filibusters against judicial nominees.

Both sides said Sunday they had the votes to prevail, including having support from across the aisle.

"I haven't given up on the possibility that we might have 60 votes (to break a filibuster), including some Democrats who've been whispering in our ears that they believe that this ought to be defused," Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the chief GOP vote counter, said on "Fox News Sunday."

Republicans hold 55 seats in the 100-member Senate. Democrats have 44, plus one Democratic-leaning independent.

Frist needs a minimum of 50 votes to abolish judicial filibusters with a rules change. Vice President Dick Cheney would provide the tie-breaking vote in his constitutional role as president of the Senate.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democrats' vote counter, told Fox that his party was united. He said he expected to pick up GOP support from some who have yet to signal their intentions.

"We feel that there are at least four Republican senators who feel as we do and we feel that there are several who are making up their minds at the last moment," Durbin said.

But McConnell said that should negotiations fail and the vote to end a filibuster fall short, "I believe we will have the votes" to ban the use of filibusters against judicial nominees.

Others seemed to be holding out hope for an 11th-hour compromise.

"I believe that, as reasonable people, as we have in the past in the Senate, we should sit down together and work this out," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told ABC's "This Week."

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," said Democrats "should not accept a compromise that's going to silence and muzzle and gag a member of the United States Senate" from expressing an opinion about someone who is in line for a lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary.