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Obama Turns Up Heat Over Ruling on Campaign Spending

WASHINGTON — President Obama took aim at the Supreme Court on Saturday, saying the justices had “handed a huge victory to the special interests and their lobbyists” with last week’s 5-to-4 decision to lift restrictions on campaign spending by corporations and unions.

The decision will have major political implications for this year’s midterm elections. After it was announced, Mr. Obama immediately instructed his advisers to work with Congress on legislation that would restore some of the limits the court lifted. But in his weekly address on Saturday, he sharply stepped up his criticism of the high court.

“This ruling strikes at our democracy itself,” Mr. Obama said, adding: “I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest. The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.”

How much the administration can do about the ruling remains unclear, although Mr. Obama said he had instructed his advisers to work with Congress on a “forceful, bipartisan response.”

That process got under way Friday, a White House official said, when Norm Eisen, Mr. Obama’s special counsel for ethics and government reform, met with two leading Democrats — Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York and Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland — to begin talks on how Congress might proceed.

The sharply divided decision overturned parts of a 2002 law — known as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, after the two senators who sponsored it — that severely restricted political advertising paid for by corporations and unions in the 30 days before a presidential primary and in the 60 days before general elections.

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