Mr. Kirnan says he would have voted for the stronger Democratic version of the patients' rights bill.

The action came after they defeated broader Democratic versions of the same provisions that would have covered far more people.

The aides said the Democratic version would demonstrate dozens of flaws in the Republican findings.

Mitchell criticized the Democratic version of the bill for not having sufficiently high penalties for striking state employees.

Their final solution was a Liberal Democratic version of one-man, one-vote.

At that point, unlike the Democratic versions, the program would have terminated.

As majority leader, he tried to maximize opportunities for only Democratic versions of bills.

The Democratic version is more the tail wagging the dog.

The Republicans hope that may speed negotiations to resolve the differences between the Democratic and Republican versions.

"If the Administration wants to make an issue of this," he said, "there is a good possibility that we will get a Democratic version."