BOSTON -- A movement on Beacon Hill to change state law to let the governor appoint an interim replacement for Sen. Ted Kennedy in the U.S. Senate looks like it has momentum, sources say.

NewsCenter 5 has learned that House leadership believes it has the votes necessary to pass a bill that would give Gov. Deval Patrick the OK, although a yes vote in the Massachusetts Senate is far less certain.

The Election Laws Committee is expected to poll its members within the next 24 hours and there could be a vote as early as Thursday on the floor of the House, sources said.

The proposed legislation would require that any interim replacement come from the same political party as the senator who is being replaced -- in the case of the Kennedy seat, that would be a Democrat.

State Sen. Scott Brown, the ranking Republican on the committee and a declared candidate for the Kennedy seat, said he voted "no" on the redraft of H. 656, An Act Relative to Filling a Temporary Vacancy in the United States Senate.

"It's time for someone to tell the truth about what is really going on with the Senate appointment bill. This is about sending someone down to Washington to vote sight unseen for a health care bill that could potentially raise taxes and increase government involvement in our lives. That's wrong. If the Democrats believed in the principle of continuous representation, they wouldn't have taken the power to appoint away from a Republican governor. Now they are considering giving it back to a Democratic governor. I have news for all the political insiders: the Senate seat belongs to the people, not to the Beacon Hill special interests," Brown said in a prepared statement.

If the bill were passed, Gov. Patrick's interim replacement would serve four months, until a special election is held on the seat on Jan. 19, 2010.

The proposed law would not prohibit the appointee from running for the seat officially.

The Massachusetts Legislature is dominated by Democrats in both the House and Senate, although neither party holds a majority of registered voters in the state, where most voters are classified as Independents.

Five years ago, the Democratic-controlled Legislature changed the law to prohibit Republican Gov. Mitt Romney from appointing an interim replacement for Sen. John Kerry, should he win the presidency. Now, with a Democratic governor in office, Demcrats want to change the law back to allow the governor to fill the seat.