WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama aims to usher in a new era of consumer protections and banking restrictions today, checking off another legislative victory just before election-year politics overtakes the rest of his major agenda.

The president was expected to sign a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations, a signature achievement that comes nearly two years after Wall Street's failures knocked the economy into the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The White House was planning a major signing ceremony featuring a long list of supporters of the legislation, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Robert Diamond, president of Barclay's PLC.

Obama is going out of his way to spotlight the legislation's creation of a consumer protection bureau, an effort to make an otherwise arcane and complex regulatory bill meaningful to the public and to fend off Republican criticism that it amounts to an expansion of government.

"These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history," the president says in excerpts released by the White House in advance of his remarks. "And these protections will be enforced by a new consumer watchdog with just one job: looking out for people — not big banks, not lenders, not investment houses in the financial system."

The law also assembles a powerful council of regulators to be on the lookout for risks across the finance system. It places shadow financial markets that previously escaped the oversight of regulators under new scrutiny and gives the government new powers to break up companies that threaten the economy.