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I don't disagree, but it's not obvious to me that the Court needs to reach the First Amendment question, which sometimes (though certainly not always) means that they won't. The First Amendment question is substantial to the question of insurrection, and however this ultimately plays out I would expect SCOTUS to prefer a procedural holding over a substantive one. So I expect the Fourteenth Amendment to play a more decisive role than the First--but you may be right!
I have given up prognosticating re what basis justices will rule on, but I am guessing that there wont be a single majority opinion. But of course the court might limit the issues presented from the get-go.
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There are numerous deficiencies in the Colorado ruling both substantive (did Trump commit insurrection, how does the 1st and 14th interact) and procedural (is the 14th self executing, does it even apply to the president, even if self executing what kind of protections are provided to office seekers).
SCOTUS will rule on the procedural grounds because they don’t want this to become a tool to remove candidates from the election (eg maybe a state says that Biden gave comfort and aide to say the BLm riots and that is an insurrection). It would be easy to say Congress has to provide enabling legislation and while not entirely clear the closest thing to enabling legislation (1283) hasn’t been met and so unless and until that has been satisfied this provision won’t apply. I suspect even Kagan will join (or perhaps even write that opinion to help give it legitimacy). It can be politically neutral (eg we never get to the question of whether Trump is guilty of the underlying crime).
This is but another example though of the left’s hatred of Trump destroying institutions.
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