Obama Criticizes Supreme Court Ruling, Urges Action on Campaign Finance, Lobbying

President Obama’s unusual criticism of the U.S. Supreme Court during his Jan. 27 State of the Union address to Congress heralded his administration’s first concrete, legislative proposals for beefing up lobbying and campaign finance laws.

But Obama himself quickly was criticized by some opponents of the proposals, and it was not clear how Congress would respond to his calls for new restrictions on lobbyists, foreign-owned companies, and so-called spending earmarks.

“With all due deference to separation of powers,” Obama said in his speech, “last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates ...