It’s hard to say whether SCOTUS will keep Trump on the ballot in 2024

• The Supreme Court agreed to reconsider Colorado’s decision to expel Trump from the 2024 primary ballot.
• The court’s ruling could determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
• Experts spoke to Business Insider about the challenges facing courts.

A monumental decision will be handed down before nine U.S. Supreme Court justices.

The Supreme Court agreed late Friday to reconsider the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to ban former President Donald Trump from the state’s ballot for his role in the insurrection.

The court also decided to expedite its review and is scheduled to hold oral arguments on February 8th.

However, no one knows what the judge will decide.

“They need to think about the impact of this decision in many ways, including the impact on the court itself and the broader country,” said Carolyn Shapiro, founder of the Chicago-Kent U.S. Supreme Court Institute. It will be,” he said. he told Business Insider.

Legal experts who spoke to Business Insider offered different perspectives on how the three judges appointed under the Trump administration will decide the fate of Trump’s voting eligibility.

Kevin McMahon, a political science professor at Trinity College who is currently working on a book about the Supreme Court, told BI that no matter how partisan the Supreme Court has been accused of being, it is important to understand how the justices decide. There are many uncertainties, he said.

He pointed to conservative former federal judge J. Michael Luttig, who told MSNBC in December that the Colorado case was not a partisan issue.

“It should be clear to the American people that if a former president is disqualified, it is the Constitution of the United States that disqualifies him from high office,” Ruttig said. “It’s not President Joe Biden. It’s not the Democratic Party. It’s not anti-Trump.”

Shapiro similarly said there was “no certainty” about the outcome.

“There are very strong arguments, including originalist arguments, that he is not qualified,” he said, referring to the legal theory that the Constitution is interpreted as it was intended when it was drafted. “But the argument that he is not disqualified is not entirely frivolous.”

The issue surrounding Mr. Trump’s disqualification revolves around the following clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:

“No person shall be a member of the Senate or the House of Representatives, or an elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office of office under the United States or any nation; Engaged in rebellion or insurrection in support of the Constitution of the United States, as a member of Congress, as an officer of the United States, or as a member of a state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of a state; However, Congress may remove such obstacles by a two-thirds vote of each house.

The Colorado Supreme Court and lawyers who filed the Colorado lawsuit seeking to bar Trump from the primary ballot argue that the law applies to Trump because of his actions on January 6, 2021. he claimed.

Donald Sherman, one of the lead attorneys in the Colorado case, previously told BI, “We believe the factual arguments of the law are strong.” “We also believe that the factual case of law is an originalist case regarding the disqualification of Donald Trump.”

Shapiro said one of the arguments supporting Trump is that the presidency should not be treated like any other office in the United States.

A lower court judge in Colorado initially ruled that Trump was an insurrectionist. However, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment “did not intend to include the president as an ‘officer of the United States.'”

The Colorado Supreme Court ultimately reversed that conclusion.

Maine’s secretary of state said Trump was not eligible to vote and that lawsuits were pending in other states.

What can the Supreme Court do?

The court could decide whether to keep Trump on the ballot or ban him entirely.

But Shapiro added that the courts are even more limited in how they can rule.

“Courts can rule on one or the other very narrowly so as not to affect other types of elections, for example, limiting this particular hold to the office of president, or perhaps the office of vice president. “There are ways to make a decision like that. There is also a way for the court to make a decision that avoids determining the merits of the case altogether,” she said.

Neema Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of the West Coast Court of Appeals, argued that the result is clear and Trump will remain on the ballot in 2024.

“Less than a week after[Trump]filed his appeal, the Supreme Court justices agreed to accept the case, abruptly moved oral arguments to February 8, and expedited the press conference. The fact that – I mean, you don’t have to be a judge. ‘You have to read the experts or the tea leaves to know which direction this is going,” Rahmani told BI. “Trump will win.”

Even if conservative justices had an originalist interpretation of the amendment, there is no actual precedent to determine how the 14th Amendment is enforced, Rahmani said.

“This has never really been litigated,” he said. “We know what the 14th Amendment says. If you engage in rebellion, you can’t hold office. But how is it enforced? Who enforces it? Is it the Secretary of State? Is it an unelected judge? (President Trump) “Does it need to be indicted and convicted? Does that require an act of Congress? Does it require impeachment? The 14th Amendment We don’t know how it will be enforced or who will enforce it.”

But Shapiro and McMahon were far more skeptical of any predictions about the court’s decision.

Mr. Shapiro called from Washington, D.C., to the annual meeting hosted by the Association of American Law Schools. She said Trump’s fate in 2024 has been a topic of conversation among her professors and lawyers.

“It’s actually really interesting to talk to other constitutional lawyers and constitutional law professors,” she said. “Who knows what will happen?”