The Supreme Court on Thursday will hear arguments over whether former President Donald Trump can be removed from the 2024 ballot, a landmark case which will see the justices examine a rarely used Civil War-era provision of the U.S. Constitution which the country's highest court has never before interpreted.

In one of the most significant election cases the high court has heard in decades, the justices will determine if the Colorado Supreme Court was right to remove the former president from the state’s primary ballot.

What You Need To Know

  • The Supreme Court on Thursday will hear arguments over whether former President Donald Trump can be removed from the 2024 ballot

  • The case centers on a clause in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which says that no person who has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the U.S. can hold public office

  • Colorado's highest court disqualified Trump from appearing on its ballot, arguing that his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, qualifies as an insurrection

  • The Supreme Court has never interpreted the insurrection clause, which was enacted in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War

  • Despite the presidential primary being underway, there’s no set timing for when the Supreme Court will issue its ruling, though the fact that the justices hearing the case in early February, when the court is typically on a monthlong break, highlights the urgency of the case

In December of last year, Colorado judges ruled Trump was ineligible under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution’s "insurrection clause" due to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Adopted after the Civil War, the amendment says no person who has previously taken oath as an officer of the United States shall hold any office if that person engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the government. A lower court in Colorado had previously found that Trump engaged in an insurrection on Jan. 6, but declined to weigh in on his eligibility to appear on the ballot.

Trump has appealed the decision and remains on the ballot in Colorado while the case plays out. If the justices rule against him, the decision could have far broader effects.

“The ruling would be binding precedent not only for Colorado but for other states. And therefore other states, at least those where there are laws that say in order to be on the ballot you have to be eligible for the office that you’re running for, Trump would be ineligible to be on the ballot in those states as well,” George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin told Spectrum News.

While the current makeup of the high court is a 6-3 conservative lean, including three judges Trump appointed himself during his term, legal experts say that does not guarantee the outcome will be in his favor.

“There is very little precedent on Section 3 and many of the issues that are raised are relatively novel, and also it’s hard to determine whether and to what extent the justices may be influenced by the political stakes here,“ Somin said.

“I think when confronted with the language, they’re going to have to come to the same conclusion the Colorado Supreme Court came to,” Georgetown Law professor Caroline Fredrickson told Spectrum News.

Despite the presidential primary being underway, there’s no set timing for when the Supreme Court will issue its ruling, though the fact that the justices hearing the case in early February, when the court is typically on a monthlong break, highlights the urgency of the case. It's possible that the high court could issue a ruling before March 5, also known as Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states, accounting for a third of all delegates for the presidential nominating conventions, will hold their primaries and caucuses.

Dozens of amicus briefs have been filed in the case, including one in support of Trump signed by nearly 200 Republican members of Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and one from J. Michael Luttig, a retired conservative federal appeals judge who has become an outspoken critic of the former president. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, also filed a brief with the high court, urging the justices to rule one way or another, but to issue a definitive ruling in the case.

"Finality must come now so that the states and their election officials can conduct efficient and meaningful elections," Benson wrote. "Neither purpose would be served by a decision from this Court that left open questions about the proper application" of Section

Trump separately faces 91 felony charges across four ciminal cases, including two -- one in federal court in Washington and one in Fulton County, Georgia -- related to alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him and denied any wrongdoing.

The former president was impeached in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on a charge of incitement of insurrection, though he was acquitted by the U.S. Senate despite receiving the largest bipartisan vote to convict in U.S. history.