President Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated two Republicans to seats on the Federal Election Commission, the first step toward reopening the idled federal campaign finance regulator as the 2026 midterms get underway.
Trump nominated Andrew Woodson, a lawyer at Wiley Rein who previously worked for former FEC Chair Lee Goodman, and Ashley Stow, who previously worked with former FEC Commissioner Trey Trainor, to fill two of the four vacancies on the commission.
If the Senate confirms Stow and Woodson, four of the six commission seats will be filled for the first time since April 2025. This would allow the FEC to once again attend to its highest-level duties, including investigating complaints, fining political committees that break federal campaign finance laws, issuing rules, defending the agency in court and issuing formal responses to novel legal questions.
NOTUS reported in July that congressional leaders had recommended Stow, Woodson and Democrat Jonathan Peterson of Elias Law Group to Trump to fill the three vacant seats that became vacant between January and April 2025.
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But Trump failed for months to act, causing alarm among campaign finance watchdogs and lawyers, including former Republican commissioners, who feared the 2026 midterm elections would be without a functioning federal campaign finance regulator.
A fourth FEC commissioner seat became vacant in October when Trainor left the FEC to join the Dhillon Law Group and run for Congress.
“We are pleased that the Administration has announced nominees and welcome this important step toward restoring a quorum,” FEC Chair Shana Broussard and Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum, the two remaining Democrats, said in a statement to NOTUS. “We look forward to an expeditious process so we can resume carrying out the Commission’s full range of responsibilities.”
The White House, Stow and Woodson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The FEC’s de facto shutdown won’t end immediately, and even under the best of circumstances, it may be several weeks before the agency is fully operational again. The Senate traditionally conducts a confirmation hearing for FEC nominees, then votes after. The full Senate then must confirm nominees.
Once the FEC regains a quorum of at least four commissioners, it’s likely to face a significant investigation and enforcement case backlog from the more than nine months it’s been unable to act.
With a bare-bones quorum of four, commissioners would need to unanimously agree on most matters before the commission to advance them, such as whether to approve an investigation or audit. This could prove to be a major challenge for the fractious commission, which has frequently deadlocked along ideological lines on many high-profile matters.
Michael Beckel, who leads the money in politics reform program at the nonprofit Issue One, warned “a dysfunctional or grid-locked FEC could empower political operatives to keep pushing the envelope of the anti-corruption laws on the books and enable bad actors to evade accountability.”
“A functional Federal Election Commission requires commissioners who are committed to upholding the letter and spirit of our nation’s anti-corruption laws. As senators assess these two new nominations, they would do well to ask questions about these nominee’s approaches to enforcing our current campaign finance laws,” Beckel told NOTUS.
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