2024: All Eyes on SCOTUS

[Valin]

Declassified with Julie Kelly

What happens at Supreme Court next year will shape the country's political future. Will justices punt like they did during 2020 election or tame a dangerously out-of-control legal and judicial system?

Julie Kelly

Dec. 30 2023

Throughout 2020, both Republicans and Democrats warned that the U.S. Supreme Court would ultimately determine the winner of the presidential election—albeit for different reasons. 

Democrats feared a conservative majority would uphold what they called “voter suppression” laws to tighten voting requirements that might benefit President Trump. Republicans worried how the court would handle cases related to lax absentee voting measures enacted as a result of the coronavirus pandemic that gave Joe Biden a big advantage.

Democrats, it is fair to say, won the day in 2020. Justices systematically denied consideration of numerous lawsuits challenging the validity of elections in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Michigan—a persistent sore spot on the Right.

Which is why many Republicans turn a skeptical eye toward the court’s involvement in 2024 election matters. How will justices who punted on dealing with flagrant election fraud in 2020 now confront unprecedented political issues central to the Biden regime’s lust to put Trump behind bars before Election Day? Will the court again take the easy way out or find a spine at a time when the American people need it most?

(Snip)

No Guts, No Glory

Not every case before SCOTUS next year will have originated at the DOJ. Republicans just filed a petition before the highest court seeking to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court’s order removing Trump from the primary ballot. Justices can put a stop to the 14th Amendment “insurrection” nonsense, halting the Left’s abuse of the provision to keep Trump and other “insurrectionist” Republicans out of office.

But what if they don’t? That’s the nagging question in the collective mind of the MAGA Right—will the court balk on every controversial matter from presidential immunity and the 14th Amendment to 1512(c)(2) and beyond? The recent conduct of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, not to mention the historical conduct of Chief Justice John Roberts, does little to inspire confidence among the base. Nothing, even the most layup case, is a given.

A safe bet is the court will work hard to appear impartial, where half the cases go Trump’s way and the other half don’t. Deny Smith’s speedy cert motion but also deny Trump’s challenge to the immunity order. Overturn Colorado Supreme Court but uphold 1512(c)(2). Toss out a few lower level J6 convictions but refuse to consider high-profile convictions for “domestic terrorists.”

At a time when the scales of justice are so unbalanced, a self-conscious SCOTUS seeking to appear balanced might be the most dangerous threat of all.