by Nina Totenberg
National Public Radio
September 9, 2009
The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have returned early from their summer recess to hear arguments in a case that could rip apart the legal underpinnings of the nation's campaign finance laws. For more than a century, for all practical purposes, those laws have barred corporations from spending money on candidate elections.
Wednesday's argument is a double first: The first argument to be heard by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and the first time new U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan will argue a case before the Supreme Court.
The justices view the case as so important that they are hearing it three weeks before the official opening of the new term, and they have taken the unusual step of allowing same-day broadcast of the audio...
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