AUGUSTA – Private discussions among leading figures in the Maine Senate are intensifying over how to apportion power in a 35-member chamber comprising 17 Democrats, 17 Republicans and one independent.

Three Democrats who were ready to joust for the Senate presidency if their party had retained majority control in the Nov. 7 elections conferred by telephone Saturday with the lone independent, Sen. Jill Goldthwait of Bar Harbor.

Goldthwait, according to friends in the Senate, has been on vacation in California for a week and is expected back Tuesday.

In her absence, two Senate recounts confirmed the delicate 17-17-1 balance in the incoming Senate’s political composition and assured Goldthwait a central role in determining where and how presiding authority will be vested when the Legislature convenes early next month.

For the past two years, Democrats have held the upper hand in a Senate divided 20-14-1 in their favor. The Nov. 7 shake-up not only put the chamber in a partisan knot but also brought forth a total of 15 new members for the upcoming two-year term.

The new Republican bloc has already settled on Sen. Richard Bennett of Norway, who served as the GOP deputy floor leader during this past session, as its leader for the next two years.

Bennett, who spoke with Goldthwait Friday evening and “gave her an outline of what my thinking is,” said Saturday he expected negotiations over how to organize the new Senate to produce a power-sharing arrangement.

To date, neither he nor others have offered to spell out how committee chairmanships and other panel assignments might be made, or by whom.

Bennett did say it would be best to codify an agreement in formal Senate rules that would require a supermajority, at least two-thirds, to undo.

“Rather than trying to wrest power through Machiavellian means,” Bennett said, both parties are in a position to recognize that the pragmatic course would be to “create a structure that will last for two years.”

Participating in the Democrats’ conversation with Goldthwait on Saturday were Sens. Anne Rand of Portland, who is currently the assistant majority leader, Michael Michaud of East Millinocket and Beverly Daggett of Augusta.

The three veteran lawmakers have been meeting in recent days to coordinate development of a Democratic caucus response to the numerical deadlock.

“I think our next step is we will certainly be getting together with Republican leaders,” Rand said Saturday. “I have no reason to believe the Republicans aren’t feeling the same way we are – partisan differences aside, we’ve got to get organized and we’ve got to get going.”

Newly elected Senate Republicans plan to meet Nov. 27 to flesh out their leadership structure. Democratic Senate caucus plans were unclear.