At least one of a series of regional caucuses that were planned to select a candidate for Senator has been postponed awaiting Mr. Thornburgh's decision.

Mr. Hammoudi said the most likely solution would be to have regional caucuses select candidates to a national conference that would make the final selections.

That means it cannot hold a rotating Security Council seat or important committee positions, which are filled through nominations from regional caucuses.

A fourth candidate, Herschel Hardin, participated in the regional caucuses but did not win sufficient delegate support to qualify for the convention.

The success of the lawmakers in shaping the two bills, which will soon go before a conference committee, is fueling a new effort to create a regional Congressional caucus.

A country like Israel, which belongs to no regional caucus, never gets an opportunity to vie for a seat.

At these caucuses delegates to the regional and world caucuses were elected according to the process discussed above.

Active participation within the regional caucuses is often easy; recruitment into the social caucuses is not.

There are many regional caucuses with varying degrees of influence on Capitol Hill.

The Israelis, barred from Arab and Asian regional caucuses, have campaigned to be admitted to a group of European and other countries.