Confirmed. Finally.
From Politico's morning newsletter:
For the first time, the White House feels it’s escaped the “scandalabra” swamp and now can do more counterpunching, as we saw this week with the nimbleness of a health-reform event when the House was voting on Obamacare, and a Richard Cordray appearance with POTUS the morning after confirmation as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Hard to overstate what a win that was for the White House: If you had polled the West Wing not too long ago, 80 percent of aides would have predicted Cordray would NEVER be confirmed.
Cordray always had the votes in the Senate, he just couldn't get through a Republican filibuster attempting to force Democrats to rewrite the law that created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In other words, a chamber that was tasked with "advice and consent" of such nominees, instead saw a minority block the nomination to "obstruct and destroy" a valid law which it didn't have the votes to reform the way the Constitution intended. It was sabotage, pure and simple.
And then Democrats did what they should've done a long time ago—they eliminated the filibuster and all was well.
Of course, the filibuster wasn't technically eliminated. It's still on the books. Republicans are still obstructing—even Sen. John McCain. But Democrats can now threaten a rules change every time GOP obstruction amps up, and if Republicans don't cave like they did this week, the rules will be changed and that bit of leverage will disappear.
So let's call it the "judicious filibuster." Republicans have it as long as they no longer abuse it. It still needs to be written off the books, but given where we were a week ago, we've come a long way. And Cordray is the proof.
Tell your Democratic senators to strike while the iron is hot, and push the talking filibuster.