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On Thursday afternoon Tom Perez, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Justice Department, was confirmed 54-46 to head the Department of Labor after months of Republican attempts to sink his nomination. Perez’s confirmation was secured, along with four other long languishing nominees, as part of a deal brokered earlier this week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as an alternative to reforming the filibuster rules that have been used to waylay votes on key agency heads. But the confirmation of Perez, which Republicans had fought tooth and nail, might be the biggest win for progressives.

As my former colleague Adam Serwer wrote back in March, when the fight over Perez’s nomination was just getting underway, spearheaded by Sen Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Perez is poised to be “one of the most effective and progressive senior administration officials to [Obama’s] cabinet.” As Adam wrote at the time:

The deal negotiated by Reid earlier this week also scored votes on Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Gina McCarthy for the Environmental Protection Agency, Fred Hochberg for the Export-Import Bank, and current National Labor Relations Board chairman Mark Gaston Pearce, all of which have had the votes to pass by majority, but had been waylaid by Republican filibuster. The whole compromise was a serious win for the Obama administration, which had seen 16 of its nominations for executive-branch positions blocked by filibuster, but Perez’s role as an unapologetic advocate for civil rights who’s fought police brutality, voter suppression, racial profiling, and discriminatory lending practices makes this victory particularly sweet.