Richard Cordray stepped off Marine One in an overcoat, holding a brown folder to his chest.

It was Jan. 4, 2012, and Cordray, the former attorney general of Ohio, was about to fly back to his home state in style. He boarded Air Force One, bound for a high school gym in a Cleveland suburb where President Barack Obama would announce the wait was over: With Congress in recess, he was appointing Cordray as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

As Obama noted that day, U.S. Senate Republicans had blocked Cordray's confirmation for “almost half a year.” For the next 18 months, Cordray ran the consumer watchdog under a cloud of uncertainty. Finally, late one Tuesday morning in July 2013 — just shy of the two-year anniversary of his nomination ceremony in the Rose Garden — Cordray received a reassuring email from a fellow Buckeye Democrat.