Five years after the Senate last approved new members to the nation's election watchdog agency, President Barack Obama's two nominees face their first test Wednesday at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. And while no opposition has surfaced so far, there remain plenty of questions about whether new members can change an agency that's taking on one-tenth the number of enforcement actions that it did a decade ago.

Obama's two picks for the Federal Election Commission are California regulator Ann Ravel and Virginia lawyer Lee Goodman. Ravel would fill an open Democratic ...