The White House has offered leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee access to legal documents related to the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program, senators said Thursday.

But Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said that although the White House had offered the files to both him and the panel’s ranking Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, he is pushing for the entire committee to have access to the documents.

The Bush administration is asking Congress to grant retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies being sued for their alleged role in the NSA program.

A Judiciary Committee aide had said the panel was holding off on a markup of legislation rewriting the rules for electronic surveillance until it received access to documents pertaining to the legal foundation of the NSA program.

The entire Senate Intelligence Committee and its staff did receive access to the documents before approving the draft surveillance legislation Oct. 18, and had conditioned its own markup on getting to view them. That committee’s draft legislation includes the retroactive legal immunity.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the White House’s offer a “breakthrough.”

“We’re going to get something done, and we need to do it before the end of this year,” Reid said.

Congress sent to President Bush in August a bill making changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), but that law (PL 110-55) expires in February.

Leahy said he intended to take the White House up on its offer to view the documents before an Oct. 31 hearing his committee has scheduled on FISA. A Judiciary aide said terms of the viewing had not yet been determined. Other details, such as whether Leahy and Specter would be able to view all the documents they had subpoenaed over the summer, also had to be worked out.

It was not clear whether access to the documents for Leahy and Specter would break a logjam on FISA legislation in the Senate. The House, too, has been unable to pass its version of the FISA bill (HR 3773).

The House bill would require the administration to apply to the secret FISA court for a surveillance order permitting spying on a large number of foreign targets that may be communicating with people in the United States. Unlike the Senate Intelligence bill, it would not grant retroactive legal immunity, and it has drawn a veto threat.

The Senate Intelligence legislation would permit warrantless surveillance of foreign targets that may be communicating with someone in the United States, but it would require FISA court approval of procedures related to the spying. The White House largely favors the Senate legislation, but wants to change provisions regarding warrant requirements for conducting surveillance of U.S. citizens overseas.

In the Senate, four Democratic presidential candidates — first Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, then Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Barack Obama of Illinois and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware — have said they will filibuster the FISA bill as currently written.

Their opposition includes Dodd saying he will block any legislation that contains retroactive legal immunity and Clinton saying she will support a filibuster of the current bill “absent additional information coming forward that would convince me differently.”

MoveOn.org, with a coalition of liberal bloggers and groups devoted to protecting civil liberties, had waged a campaign to pressure the candidates into blocking the legislation.The presidential candidates’ opposition has prompted harsh words from the Intelligence Committee’s leaders.

“I think it’s very sad,” the chairman of the panel, John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., said this week of Dodd’s hold on the legislation. “I don’t think he means it. I think it is political. I hope he lifts it.”

The committee’s vice chairman, Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., said Thursday that “politics seems to have come into play.”

“I wish them all well on the campaign trail,” Bond said. “But please get informed about what’s going on and learn something about it before you say you’re going to oppose it.”

In the House, the FISA legislation has been delayed as Democrats contemplate their next move.

Republicans derailed a vote last week on the House FISA legislation with a procedural maneuver that Democratic leadership could not overcome.

The Democrats planned to bring back the legislation this week, but a Democratic aide said Thursday it would come up “possibly next week.”

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said Oct. 23 that House leaders were still hoping to bring their own FISA bill back to the floor but were also considering other options.

As an example, he said that House Democrats could consider another short-term extension through March or April of the temporary expanded powers given to the administration that expire in February. “There are all sorts of options,’’ Hoyer said. “I’m willing to discuss with the administration the facts on which they want to rely,” he said.

A House Democratic aide said Thursday that “leadership is continuing to meet” and did not have any additional details to share on potential changes to the legislation or how Democrats might overcome Republicans if they throw up another procedural hurdle.

The aide said that no one in the House had received the NSA documents as of Thursday.

With the House bill delayed, the battle to win over party liberals continued this week.

Although Democratic leaders have insisted that they have the votes they need to pass their legislation, some aides said the Democratic Caucus was too divided to push through the bill.

Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and a supporter of the House leadership-backed bill, hosted a briefing Oct. 24 for members of the Progressive Caucus that featured arguments in favor of the legislation from the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, and others.

On Thursday, Rush D. Holt, D-N.J., also held a briefing for members of the Progressive Caucus, but he argued against the legislation, as did representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union. Supporters of the legislation, however, argued that it provides the proper balance of civil liberties and national security.

Seth Stern, Alan K. Ota, Kathleen Hunter, Bart Jansen and Keith Perine contributed to this story.