Washington ? Congressional Democrats are drafting legislation that would give the teetering Detroit automakers at least $15 billion in emergency loans and grant the federal government broad authority to manage a massive restructuring of their operations.

The proposal, which could be put to a vote in Congress as soon as Tuesday, would establish a seven-member “auto board” of Cabinet officials and a chairman to be appointed by President Bush to oversee both the short-term loans and a long-term effort to restore the faltering industry to profitability. If the companies take the cash, they would be accountable to the government for nearly every move, and for every transaction of $25 million or more.

As part of that restructuring, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford could be asked to jettison their top executives, one of the chief architects of the plan, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said Sunday. Stating bluntly that “GM is in the worst shape” of the three auto giants, Dodd said that GM chairman Richard Wagoner, the company’s chief since 2000, “has to move on.”

“You have got to consider new leadership,” Dodd said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “If you’re going to really restructure this, you have got to bring in a new team to do this.”

President-elect Barack Obama seemed to echo that view during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, saying “we have to put an end to … the head-in-the-sand approach to the auto industry that has been prevalent for decades now.”

Obama expanded on the point later at a news conference in Chicago, saying management should be replaced if the “team that’s currently in place doesn’t understand the urgency of the situation and is not willing to make the tough choices and adapt to these new circumstances.”

The president-elect also for the first time publicly endorsed the idea of a short-term loan program to keep GM and Chrysler afloat through the first three months of the new year. Ford is also seeking access to a government line of credit, but says it would only ask for the money if the economy weakens significantly. By contrast, GM executives have said that they could run out of cash within the month.

On Friday, Democrats in Congress broke a weeks-long stalemate with the White House over aid to the automakers, agreeing to draw funds from an existing loan program created by Congress to promote fuel-efficient technologies, as the White House had long proposed. Since then, the two sides have worked through the weekend to reach a compromise.

A White House official declined late Sunday to comment on the Democratic proposal. The Bush administration has drafted its own proposal for managing the bailout, including appointment of a “financial viability advisor” within the Commerce Department.

l Obama: Economy will get worse before it’s better. Page 7A.