WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday confirmed two nominees chosen by President Obama for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, overcoming Republican objections and bringing the seven-member board to full strength for the first time since 2006, before the economic crisis struck.


The Harvard economist Jeremy Stein and the investment banker and lawyer Jerome Powell were confirmed easily after a morning of debate. The vote for Mr. Stein was 70-24, and for Mr. Powell, 74-21.


For months, Senator David Vitter, a Republican of Louisiana and a member of the Banking Committee, had been holding up the nominations, saying the two men would be “rubber stamps” for the policies of the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and, by implication, the Obama administration.


But in the aftermath of JPMorgan Chase’s recently acknowledged trading losses, which have raised questions about whether the Fed and other regulatory agencies have a tight enough hand on the regulatory reins, Senate leaders found that there were enough votes to get around procedural obstructions under the Senate’s rules.


Some senators even saw signs of a broader comity in the Senate’s ability to proceed on these nominations; for too long, said Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican of Tennessee, being in the Senate had felt like “being invited to join the Grand Ole Opry and not being allowed to sing.”


“We hope it can set the tone for agreements well into the future, this year and in 2013 as well,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat of New York.


A White House statement expressed gratitude that “both parties have come together” for the votes on Mr. Stein and Mr. Powell, adding, “Today’s broad bipartisan vote in the Senate reflects their deep knowledge of economic and monetary policy, as well as their distinguished backgrounds and unique experience.”


Opening the debate on the Senate floor, Mr. Vitter said that he was the one who “demanded this debate and these votes” rather than confirming the nominees without a roll-call vote, as has often occurred when the Senate has filled vacancies in recent years. “This is the proper way for the Senate to do its business,” he said.


He made clear that he opposed the candidates, and that he opposes the Fed’s monetary policy of low interest rates. “This Federal Reserve has set essentially a zero interest rate policy, an extremely easy policy for an extended period of time,” he said, calling it a “very dangerous policy.”


In fact, the two nominees will join a broad consensus among the Fed governors on monetary policy, and their arrival is unlikely to shift things significantly in that regard.


On the regulatory front, Mr. Vitter said, approving the two new members would make it easier for the board to enact regulations carrying out the Dodd-Frank law without a unanimous vote, a change in the math that he said would “push those regulations to the left, if you will.”


Both of the nominees are experienced in financial regulation, Mr. Powell as a senior Treasury Department official under the President George H. W. Bush, and Mr. Stein as an adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.


In moving to force the vote, Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, explicitly linked it to the JPMorgan Chase matter, saying the bank had been behaving as if its business was a game of craps.


“It’s important that we have a fully functioning Fed,” Mr. Reid said on Tuesday, signaling his intention to seek a quick vote.


The two nominees were confirmed by a voice vote of the Senate Banking Committee on March 29, and neither is controversial in his own right. But with the presidential election nearing, some Republicans might have thought it worth waiting to fill the seats in the hope of capturing the White House.


That tactic, though, would have left them open to charges of politicizing the Fed at a time when it confronts important regulatory and monetary issues.


Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said he would vote to confirm the nominees, saying they were qualified to serve even though he believed they were not as “hawkish” on inflation as he would like.


He said that he hoped that if Mitt Romney wins the presidential election, Democrats would not stand in the way when Mr. Romney, in turn, would nominate the Fed’s next chairman and vice chairman.