Even two of the dissenters in Citizens United itself said the state court’s decision had been lawless impudence. “Lower courts are bound to follow this court’s decisions until they are withdrawn or modified,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in February in explaining her vote to block the Montana decision. She was joined by Justice Stephen G. Breyer.

In that same statement, Justice Ginsburg said the United States Supreme Court should now use the Montana case to weigh what the nation has learned since January 2010, when Citizens United overturned two precedents and allowed unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions. The new case represented, she wrote, “an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.”

Justice John Paul Stevens, who also dissented in Citizens United and retired a few months later, added his voice to the debate in a speech in Arkansas on May 30. Without referring directly to the Montana case, he said the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence had become incoherent since Citizens United and required revision.

All of this means that the Supreme Court will almost certainly agree to review the Montana case. At the same time, there is little reason to think the five justices in the majority in Citizens United have changed their minds.

The main question on Thursday, then, will be how the court will reverse the Montana decision. It could call for briefs, set the case down for argument in the fall and issue a decision months later. Or it could use a favorite tool of the court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. — the summary reversal.