By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Published: July 16, 2013

Richard Cordray, who has waited two years for a permanent appointment as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will not have to wait any longer. On Tuesday, as part of a deal to avoid an outright ban on filibusters on presidential nominations, Senate Republicans agreed to allow up-or-down votes on his nomination, as well as six other presidential appointments. Thats a great relief to the bureau, which can now operate without a political sword over its head, and to the National Labor Relations Board and the Export-Import Bank, which were also promised a working quorum of members as part of the deal. The threat made by the majority leader, Harry Reid, to change the Senates filibuster rules ended the current crisis by persuading Senator John McCain and other Connect With Us on Twitter For Op-Ed, follow@nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow@andyrNYT.

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mainstream Republicans to give in and allow President Obama votes on his nominations. (Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, showed how little he deserves that title by voting to continue a filibuster on Mr. Cordray and staying out of the deal, leaving the real leadership to

more sensible members of his caucus.) But there is always another crisis to come. Thats why its regrettable that Mr. Reid and the Democrats didnt vote to change the rules for this Senate and for a future one controlled by Republicans. They should have stood up for the principle that simple-majority votes should determine confirmation of executive appointments, not a 60-vote threshold that gives minority parties a veto over a presidents team and that was unintended by the Constitution. The deal will allow simple-majority confirmation votes for Gina McCarthy and Thomas E. Perez to head the Environmental Protection Agency and the Labor Department, respectively. It will allow votes for Fred P. Hochberg to be confirmed to another term as president of the Ex-Im Bank, and Mr. Cordray to the C.F.P.B. Mark Pearce, the chairman of the N.L.R.B., would also get a reappointment vote. If Mr. Obama agrees to pull two other nominees to the labor board Richard Griffin and Sharon Block whom Republicans have been blocking since 2011, he will be guaranteed votes on replacements of his choice. That will keep the N.L.R.B. operating for years, but its an unfortunate bit of blackmail that Republicans needed for backing down on everything else. The two nominees were eminently qualified for their jobs, but have been caught up in a lawsuit over the question of whether their recess appointments by Mr. Obama are constitutional. Of course, if they hadnt been filibustered in 2011, the lawsuit would never have come about. Will this agreement hold for the next round of appointments? Democrats say that is implicit in their victory and that Republicans will no longer be able to summon 41 votes to block a nominee. But that sounds overconfident. Within a few weeks, Mr. Obama will nominate someone to run the Homeland Security Department and may have a chance to name a new chairman of the Federal Reserve. If Democrats are forced once again to threaten a change in the rules to get votes for those nominations, they may wish they had established a more durable principle this week by ending the nominations filibuster for good.