WASHINGTON—Senate Republicans and Democrats came to agreement Tuesday on a deal to move forward on a set of President Barack Obama's executive-branch nominations, ending a logjam that threatened to poison relations between the two parties.
The move came after lawmakers agreed to confirm five of Mr. Obama's nominees and consider two replacement nominees, while averting a dramatic change to Senate rules and preserving the Republican minority's ability to stall or delay future nominations by filibuster.
The Senate voted to advance the long-stalled nomination of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the watchdog agency created after the 2008 financial crisis. Some Republicans described the move as a good-faith gesture from the party's senators toward resolving the broader dispute.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said lawmakers are close to a last-minute deal to stave off a rules change known as the "nuclear option" for its potential to destroy the delicate relationship between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate. Aaron Zitner reports.
The 71-29 vote to take up Mr. Cordray's nomination gave him more than the 60 required to move toward a vote on his confirmation. A final vote was expected as soon as Tuesday afternoon, some two years after he was first nominated.
"We walk up to the brink, but we get there. We avoid blow-ups," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), who worked with Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Democratic leaders to hash out the tentative deal.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said substantial credit for bringing the two sides to agreement goes to Mr. McCain, who has a history of breaking from his party's conservative ranks. Republican lawmakers expected to be briefed on the deal Tuesday in their weekly policy lunches.
Associated Press Republican senators John Thune, John Barrasso, John McCain, and John Hoeven walk from the floor to a closed-door caucus at the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday.
Senate aides said the deal called for Mr. Cordray and four of Mr. Obama's other nominees to be given confirmation votes Tuesday or soon after. They included nominees to the top jobs at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Labor Department and the Export-Import Bank.
Under the tentative deal, Mr. Obama would withdraw his two nominees to the National Labor Relations Board and pick two other people, who would receive votes in the near future, people in both parties said. Republicans had objected to confirming Richard F. Griffin Jr. and Sharon Block, whom Mr. Obama installed to the labor-relations board by recess appointment last year in a controversial move now under Supreme Court review.
The two new picks would go through the confirmation process with the understanding they would get a fair hearing in the chamber, according to a senior Republican aide. That suggested that Republicans didn't want to commit to confirming any new nominee without conditions, but that they wouldn't move to stop a nomination unless a major issue arose.
"Where there's goodwill, the Senate can work like greased lightning," said Mr. Schumer, who predicted the two nominees could be confirmed before Aug. 1.
Several Republican lawmakers said the outlines of the deal resolved many of their concerns.
"The NLRB has to exist, but the way the president chose to fill the vacancies was really an affront to the institution and was really a bridge too far to me," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.). "If you replace those two guys with somebody of the president's liking, I think that issue is behind us."
Under the deal, Mr. Reid and Democratic senators will stand down from their threat to change the rules on executive-branch nominations, preserving the filibuster. The rules change, if it proceeded, was likely to so poison relations between the parties that progress on a range of issues would stall.
Mr. McCain initiated the conversations that ultimately resulted in the deal, said Mr. Schumer, who said he talked on the phone nearly 30 times with Mr. McCain over the weekend, including while leading a bicycle tour in Martha's Vineyard. The turning point came at meeting attended by 98 of the 100 senators Monday night, where lawmakers widely expressed their desire to avert a clash that could stall a range of Senate business.
Messrs. Schumer and Reid received a late-night call from Mr. McCain around 11:30 p.m. on Monday, nudging them closer to the deal. But an agreement couldn't be reached until outside groups were consulted Tuesday morning, Mr. Schumer said.
Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) said he was optimistic a resolution would be reached. "Based on multiple conversations, my sense is we're moving in a good direction," he told reporters.
The last-minute deal is expected to stave off a rules change known as the "nuclear option" for its potential to destroy the delicate relationship between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.
Saying Republicans had blocked Mr. Obama's nominees, Mr. Reid had threatened to advance nominations by changing Senate rules so that a simple majority of the 100 senators would be needed. Currently, 60 votes are needed to break through a delaying tactic known as a filibuster.
Republicans said the change would strip them of an important power needed as part of the Senate's constitutional "advice and consent'' role in considering presidential nominations. They also said the filibuster is an important tool for extracting information from the White House.
They said lowering the 60-vote threshold to stop filibusters would so sour relations that progress would slow to a crawl on a wide range of Senate business. Under Senate rules, even a single lawmaker can slow the Senate, because even routine matters need consent from all 100 senators in order to expedite business.
The agreement to move forward with a vote on Mr. Cordray's confirmation resolves more than two years of partisan fights over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Congress created as a powerful watchdog over the financial system. He was serving at the agency under a presidential recess appointment.
Write to Corey Boles at corey.boles@dowjones.com and Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@dowjones.com
