A full slate of Federal Election Commission members held their first meeting Thursday, promising to roll up their sleeves and quickly address a large list of campaign finance issues that effectively been on hold since January.

The agency in charge of policing campaign finance laws has been paralyzed for the past six months due to a Senate stalemate over commission confirmations that left short of enough members to take any official actions.

The confirmation, before the July Fourth recess, of Republicans Caroline C. Hunter, Donald F. McGahn and Matthew S. Petersen, as well as Democrats Cynthia L. Bauerly, and Steven T. Walther, finally gave the commission a full slate of six members The five joined one commissioner already there, Democrat Ellen L. Weintraub.

The FEC faces some tough challenges this year, as it tackles an agenda stacked with an election year backlog of issues. Among some of the pending decisions:

• How to interpret and implement various provisions of last year’s lobbying overhaul law requiring increased disclosure of bundled contributions and travel by federal candidates.

• How to respond to recent court decisions, including one criticizing the FEC for not doing enough to regulate large donor financing of ads against candidates, and a Supreme Court ruling striking down the so-called Millionaire’s Amendment.

• And how to deal with a number of complaints from Democrats charging that presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain broke the law when he opted out of the federal primary matching funds program.

Overall, the commission will have a larger number of complaints to deal with that it did in the 2004 election cycle.

McGahn, who was elected by the panel as it’s new chairman, said the agency plans to deal with pending issues “quickly and promptly.”

“Unfortunately, since I have only been here since 9:30 this morning, we are unable to announce a calendar,” McGahn said before an unusually large crowd of spectators that overflowed into hallways. “But be assured that it is going to be brisk and ambitious,” he added, noting that many of the pending issues before the commission “matter to this election.”

Newly elected Vice Chairman Walther echoed McGahn’s sentiment: “We are going to do our best to get it done right and to get it done fast.”

Weintraub offered one more observation during the meeting. For the first time in its history, she noted, the FEC has an equal number of men and women serving.

“In my view, it is about time,” she said.