Senator Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have essentially inked the deal to
avoid the nuclear option being used to circumvent minority filibusters of President Obama's executive nominations. The deal was a net loss for Republicans, and so far a win for Reid and Democrats.
Republicans will preserve their power to filibuster executive branch nominees and Reid will reserve his right to trigger the nuclear option to change the rules if the minority threatens to defeat them with filibusters.
“They’re not sacrificing their right to filibuster, and we damn sure aren’t filibustering our right to change the rules if necessary, which I’m confident it won’t be, but I want it made very clear,” Reid said. “I’m very encouraged by discussions over the last few days. Both sides understand each other better.”
Reid said he is confident “this agreement will prove a major step toward achieving that goal.”
We've seen Reid's confidence in deals with Republicans get blown to smithereens before, so don't hold your breath. But this time, Republicans blinked. They know Reid has the 51 votes he needs to go nuclear if necessary, and that he'll do it.
So far, the deal has resulted in Richard Cordray's approved appointment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a confirmation Republicans had held up for over 700 days. Today, it means the likely approval of Fred Hochberg to a second term as president of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. His term expired in January, and he's been serving on a six-month extension that was going to end July 20. The cloture vote on Hochberg will be at 10:00 ET, and the final vote later in the day.
The votes on Gina McCarthy at EPA and Thomas Perez at Labor will be later in the week, possibly by simple majority. As for the NLRB members, the current nominations have been withdrawn by Reid. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, has scheduled nomination hearings for the replacement nominees (reported to be Nancy Schiffer, former associate general counsel at the AFL-CIO, and Kent Hirozawa, chief counsel to NLRB Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce) for next Tuesday, and plans to have the committee vote out the nominees before the end of the week to ensure they receive a vote by August 1. Speed is critical here: the Senate goes on August recess on the 5th, and the terms of the current board members expire on the 27th, which would leave the Board without a quorum and unable to do anything.