[Political Junkie Too]

If I were on the Supreme Court, here is how I would play this out:

1. Ruling "ripeness," I would say that the lower courts cannot rule on keeping Trump off of the ballot because this isn't a general election and former President Trump hasn't won the primary yet. A lot of future events still must happen before Trump is close to being President.
2. After the primaries are concluded, I would point out that primaries are party-specific nomination processes, and that even the winner of the primary is not the official candidate until the party's convention selects the candidate it wants to run in the general election. The issues is still not ripe.
3. After the convention confirms former President Trump as its nominee, I would rule that Trump is not actually on the ballot, Electors are. Trump's name is a convenient tag to make it easier for the voters, but according to the Constitution it's the Electors who are being voted on, so removing Trump from the ballot is really removing the Electors from the ballot, which is unconstitutional.
4. If former President Trump actually wins the general election, THEN AND ONLY THEN should the Supreme Court review President-elect Trump's qualification to be President via the 20th amendment Section 3: " if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified;"
5. At this point, the Supreme Court should hear 14th amendment Section 3 arguments regarding disqualification over insurrection. This finding will then meet or fail to meet the 20th amendment's "fail to qualify" clause and the President-Elect may or may not be disqualified at this time.
6. The beauty of this is the same as when Democrats tamper with the election: the party that wins still wins. If Trump is disqualified after winning the election, the Republican VP takes over as President, instead of the Democrats' plan to remove Trump so that Biden can win the election.

-PJ

[scouter]

Excellent plan. Add to it the fact that 14A does not consider the president to be an “officer”. The president is a unique position in the constitution. He is elected. I may be wrong but I believe officers are appointed. I will look into that when I have more time.