Patrick Marley for WaPo:

The Supreme Court quickly and unanimously resolved a case this week that had divided legal scholars for months, clearing a path for Donald Trump to remain on the ballot for president nationwide. But in doing so, the justices unleashed new questions that could confront Congress and the courts after the November election.

The decision reversed a finding by Colorado’s top court that votes for Trump should not be counted in that state because he had engaged in insurrection and, as a result, was barred by the Constitution from holding office. Monday’s decision — issued a day before Colorado and 14 other states held their Super Tuesday primary elections — found that states cannot prevent candidates for federal office from running based on claims that they are insurrectionists.

All nine justices agreed on that point. A majority went further and said when it comes to federal offices, only Congress has the authority to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, the part of the Constitution that bars insurrectionists from office. The court’s liberals, along with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, said the majority should not have tackled an issue it didn’t need to address.

The three justices nominated by Democratic presidents excoriated the conservative majority and accused it of trying to protect the court and Trump from “future controversy.” The majority’s reading of Section 3 effectively shut the door to using the provision to prevent future insurrectionists from holding federal office, the liberals argued.

But some legal scholars offered an additional critique, saying the court settled far less than it should have. By trying to address some questions, the majority created new ones, raising the possibility of a confusing and acrimonious post-election season, they said.

“They’ve introduced new uncertainty,” said Richard Hasen, a UCLA law professor and director of the university’s Safeguarding Democracy Project.

For instance, the decision leaves open the question of whether Congress could refuse to count electoral votes for Trump if it determines he committed insurrection during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Hasen said. It’s also unclear whether the Supreme Court can intervene in the unlikely event that that happens.

University of Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller agreed the majority opinion left the question muddled. Congress is slated to count electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2025, four years to the day after the assault on the Capitol by Trump supporters.

“This is an area of high uncertainty for me,” he said. “I think there’s no question the mood from the court is to discourage Congress from refusing to count electoral votes on January 6th. But it’s far from clear to me that that is foreclosed from Congress’s power.”…