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WASHINGTON (Court TV) — Senators voted Tuesday not to open up their debate on whether to remove President Clinton from office for perjury and obstruction of justice. The impeachment trial, which began Jan. 7, should close by the end of this week.

"I hope that we won't just have speeches, that in fact we will have deliberations," Majority Leader Trent Lott said after senators rejected a request that the final debate of the impeachment trial be opened for the public to watch.

The Senate voted 59-41 in favor of opening the deliberations, short of the two-thirds majority needed to suspend Senate Rule 29 requiring that the debate be held in private.

Meanwhile, the censure option appears to be fading as several Republicans expressed a willingness to let President Clinton walk away from his impeachment ordeal with an acquittal, leaving judgment of his conduct to history rather than any Senate-approved rebuke.

The censure idea is "a rose that is beginning to wilt," said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a member of the Senate Republican leadership.

The notion of censuring Clinton has strong Republican opposition but remains on life support with backing of most Democrats and a handful of GOP senators.

To have a such a measure considered in the 100-member Senate, supporters would need 60 votes to hurdle an expected stalling action by Republican Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, the leading opponent of a censure resolution.

Meetings on a censure are expected to become intense immediately after the Senate renders a verdict on the impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

The senators are expected to deliberate for a few days and vote on the articles at the end of the week. They have 15 minutes each to speak on whether to remove the nation's 42nd president from office for perjury and obstruction of justice in concealing his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

The final vote, to be taken Thursday or Friday, is expected to be far short of the 67 needed for conviction.

Lott, in a sign that many senators are eager to end the proceedings, made an offhanded plea that his colleagues keep the debate as short as possible.

"I remind all senators that Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address in less than three minutes, and (President) Kennedy's first inaugural was slightly over seven minutes," he said.

Following a vote to close the Senate doors, senators in favor of opening the process called a press conference to condemn the decision. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn. and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, reiterated that the process should be public.

Two votes were taken Tuesday. The first motion required 67 votes to overturn a parliamentary rule to close deliberations, but the second vote to actually close the Senate doors required only a simple majority.

Harkin and Specter told CNN they could have forced a stalemate — or even a suspension of Senate rules — if a majority of senators had opposed the second motion.

But in a testament to senatorial weariness with the month-long trial, 53 senators voted to close the doors and move on even though a majority of senators had voted to open deliberations.

Lott offered a compromise to those wanting to provide a window to the public. Senators approved Lott's idea to allow senators to insert into the Congressional Record after the trial any statements they made during the deliberations.

"I think it would be up to the senators. I hope that we won't just have speeches, that in fact we will have deliberations," Lott explained.

Blumenthal investigation rejected

Senators rejected a request from House prosecutors to call more witnesses to resolve a question over whether White House aide Sidney Blumenthal gave truthful testimony during the impeachment trial.

In his testimony, Blumenthal said he never passed on to reporters derogatory information that Lewinsky was a "stalker" — a term used by Clinton in a private conversation with his aide. Two journalists have filed affidavits challenging that assertion.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., asked senators for unanimous consent to let the House prosecutors determine if Blumenthal had committed "possible fraud on the Senate," but a senator objected and the request was dropped.

The censure option

With all the evidence submitted, including videotaped testimony from from former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, the Senate was on a path to end the first presidential impeachment trial since 1868 by week's end and then move to censure.

While a bipartisan group of senators was writing and rewriting censure language, Democratic leader Tom Daschle moved to force a procedural vote designed to get a censure resolution before the Senate.

The procedural motion may be the most that pro-censure senators can achieve for now, because censure opponents might have the muscle to block a resolution from reaching the Senate floor.

The test vote would at least give senators a chance to record votes to criticize the president's conduct in concealing an extramarital affair with Lewinsky.

Daschle indicated that about five of the Senate's 45 Democrats opposed censure and that it would take 20 Republicans to gain the 60 votes needed to overcome any filibuster.

New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg said he's one of the Democrats skeptical about a censure. "I have been tilting against it," he said. "What I've seen of the draft is too assertive in some places. I think it's too severe."

Language in the draft resolution called Clinton's conduct "shameless, reckless, and indefensible," but there was no guarantee the final version would use those words. Daschle also told reporters that Democrats would force the Senate to return to the issue later this year if Republicans didn't agree to permit a vote on censure.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said on Sunday that it was unlikely that senators, eager to return to legislative issues, would revisit the issue after the Senate begins its annual February recess next week.

Court TV's Aldina Vazao Kennedy, Catherine Heins, Bryan Robinson and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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