PORTLAND – The state supreme court heard arguments for a second time Tuesday in the latest lawsuit challenging a 25-year-old state law that restricts use of tuition vouchers in religious schools.

In a rare request, lawyers were asked to appear before the supreme court for a second time after first delivering oral arguments last March.

There was no official explanation from the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, though its membership has changed from the time when the case was first argued. Warren Silver joined the supreme court in July after Justice Paul Rudman retired.

The case was brought by a legal advocacy group on behalf of eight families from Durham, Minot and Raymond who want to use public funding to send their children to religious schools.

The Washington-based Institute for Justice maintains that a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a voucher program in Cleveland removes the legal underpinnings for the Maine court’s ruling in a similar case brought by the group in 1997.

An estimated 17,000 Maine students from 145 small towns with no high schools are subject to the voucher program.