Senate reaches deal on Obama nominees, filibusters

By Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democrats backed away on Tuesday from a potentially historic crackdown on filibusters in exchange for a Republican commitment to stop using them to block some long-stalled nominations made by President Barack Obama.

Their agreement, reached after days of talks and jockeying for political position, will allow Obama to fill out his second-term team with top administrators to lead efforts to protect workers, consumers and the environment.

It will also allow Republicans to retain their right to stop future nominees with filibusters, which are procedural hurdles used for years by the Senate's minority to stop the chamber's majority.

"They (Republicans) are not sacrificing their right to filibuster, and we for damn sure aren't sacrificing our right to change the rules" to ban them, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, declared after tense negotiations.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said: "Put this down as progress in the right direction."

But it was unclear how much progress there was, and when another partisan fight would break out in the highly divided and often grid-locked Senate.

Republican Senator John McCain, who helped negotiate the agreement, said, "People walked to the edge of the abyss and then we walked back."

"I don't know that this is going to come again anytime soon. It may, depending on what goes on in the Senate," said McCain.

Reid thanked McCain for taking a lead role in reaching the bipartisan deal. A Democratic aide said McCain succeeded after an effort by McConnell failed.

McConnell offered to permit seven pending nominees to be confirmed, if Reid would promise not to try to strip Republicans of their right to filibuster future nominees.

"No deal," Reid told McConnell, another aide said.

The first concrete sign of agreement came when the Senate, on a vote of 71-29, with 17 Republicans joining all 52 Democrats and two independents, cleared the way for an up-or-down vote on Obama's choice of Richard Cordray to serve as director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

Cordray was expected to be easily confirmed, possibly later on Tuesday, ending Republican vows to oppose him until structural changes were made in the agency that was created in 2011 to crack down on Wall Street abuses and protect consumers from financial scams.

ORGANIZED LABOR'S INPUT

Under the agreement, Reid would yield to Republican calls that Obama withdraw two nominees to the National Labor Relations Board and offer new ones.

The new ones would be picked with the help of organized labor, a traditional ally of Democrats, and Republicans would agree to confirm them by August 1, congressional aides said.

"These two nominees will be even more liberal than the current ones," a senior Democratic aide said.

"I'm pleased that the administration is going to send up two (new) nominees," McConnell said. "There will be an effort made to get them up for votes before the August recess."

Republicans have opposed NLRB nominees Sharon Block and Richard Griffin, whose temporary appointments to the board by Obama were invalidated by the federal courts. The case is now on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Republicans have long called on Obama to offer replacement nominees.

Other nominees set to be voted on by the Senate in coming days are: Fred Hochberg to be president of the U.S. Export-Import Bank; Thomas Perez to be labor secretary, and Gina McCarthy to be head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Democrats have received assurances that the three will be confirmed.

McCain and Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who crafted a landmark immigration bill earlier this year, came together again to find a compromise on nominations.

Their talks intensified following a three and one-half hour, closed-door meeting attended by all 100 senators on Monday night where differences were aired and members of both sides spoke out against changing the rules on filibusters.

"We came to an agreement that we shouldn't change the rules, but we should let the agencies function," Schumer said.

"I am hopeful that this would set a better tone not just for the seven on the list here, but for all future appointments," Schumer said.

Filibusters have long been a central tool in the Senate to permit the minority to extend debate and pressure the majority to compromise.

But in recent years, each side, when in the majority, has accused the minority of using the filibuster to create partisan gridlock rather than to find bipartisan solutions.

Without an agreement, Democrats have said their aim would be to reduce to 51 from the current 60 the number of votes needed to end filibusters against executive branch nominees. The party controls the Senate by 54-46.

Normally 67 votes are needed to change Senate rules, but Democrats could do it with just 51 under "the nuclear option," which would involve a ruling by the Democratic chair, which is often filled by Vice President Joe Biden, the chamber's president.

(Additional Reporting by David Lawder and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Philip Barbara and Fred Barbash)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-senators-fail-cut-deal-head-showdown-filibuster-030703173.html

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