Ken Doyle for Bloomberg Government:

The Federal Election Commission is set to be revived after being sidelined during the most expensive election in U.S. history.

Senate Rules and Administration Committee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) scheduled a confirmation hearing for Wednesday for Democrat Shana Broussard and Republicans Sean Cooksey and Allen Dickerson. President Donald Trump nominated them to fill longstanding vacancies to the commission in charge of campaign finance enforcement.

The panel hopes to advance their nominations to the Senate floor, where they could be voted on by the end of November.

The FEC can then get started on a backlog of about 400 enforcement cases that, according to commission officials, include complaints filed in this year’s election, as well as unresolved matters from the the previous two federal elections and some from even earlier.

But some campaign finance experts doubt that the restoration of a voting quorum — which the FEC has lacked for all but a few weeks since September 2019 — will end the history of gridlock on the six-member panel, which is equally divided between the parties and requires the approval of four members to take any enforcement action.