WASHINGTON, May 20 — Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said today that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales might resign before the Senate registers a vote of no confidence in him.

Senate Democrats have said they would bring a no-confidence resolution to the floor as soon as this week because of continuing questions about Mr. Gonzales’s role in the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors last year and strong doubts about his leadership of the Justice Department.

On “Face the Nation” on CBS, Mr. Specter noted that no-confidence votes in the Senate were rare, adding, “I have a sense that before the vote is taken, that Attorney General Gonzales may step down.”

In the American system, no-confidence votes are symbolic. In 1886, the Senate adopted such a resolution against President Grover Cleveland’s attorney general, A.H. Garland, because he had refused to provide documents explaining the ouster of a federal prosecutor.