Re-arguments in the Supreme Court are rare, and the justices' decision to call for one here may have been prompted by lingering questions about just how far campaign finance laws, including McCain-Feingold, may go in regulating campaign spending by corporations.
The discussion of book banning may have helped prompt the request for re-argument.
And they did it without inviting re-argument or supplemental briefing from the parties to the case it was considering.
But the request for re-argument suggests that the court is on the verge of bolder action.
But the court was divided enough that it asked the parties to brief some additional issues and put the case down for re-argument.
In the recent re-argument of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the chief justice commented that "we don't put our First Amendment rights in the hands of F.E.C. bureaucrats".
The court's order calling for re-argument, issued in June, has generated more than 40 friend-of-the-court briefs.
This the second recent occasion in which the Court ordered a re-argument; the other was the signature case of the Roberts Court: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
WASHINGTON -- Last June, the Supreme Court term ended with restraint and a cliffhanger, as the court left the Voting Rights Act intact and ordered re-argument in Citizens United, the big campaign finance case.
In scheduling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission for re-argument in September, Chief Justice Roberts appeared to be setting the stage for an overhaul of the law governing campaign spending by corporations.
In an unusual move in June, though, the court set the case down for re-argument on Sept. 9, asking the parties to address the question of whether it should overrule a foundational decision about the regulation of corporate speech and part of a decision upholding the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.
