A special three-judge federal court in D.C. will hear a lawsuit filed by foreign citizens living in the United States who are challenging the federal ban on campaign money from foreign nationals.

The hearing means the case -- Bluman v. Federal Election Commission -- may be on a fast track for a possible ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, BNA Money & Politics reports.

On Jan. 7, Judge Ricardo Urbina of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the hearing, although the three judges who will hear the case have not yet been named.

FEC lawyers had opposed the hearing, arguing that restrictions on foreign campaign contributions were in place before the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act was passed. That act says that once a three-judge panel has ruled on any constitutional challenge to the campaign-reform law, that ruling can be appealed directly to the Supreme Court, without having to go through an intermediate federal appeals court.

The lawsuit was brought by Benjamin Bluman, a Canadian citizen and a lawyer living in New York with a visa to live and work in the United States, and by Asenath Steiman, a Canadian and Israeli citizen who is part of a medical residency in New York. Their lawyer, Warren Postman, told BNA that the case could go before the Supreme Court by the time of the 2012 presidential election.

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