Under New York's current Constitution, State Supreme Court Justices are elected in each of the State's judicial districts. Since 1921, New York's election law has required parties to select their nominees by a convention composed of delegates elected by party members. An individual running for delegate must submit a 500-signature petition collected within a specified time. The convention's nominees appear automatically on the general-election ballot, along with any independent candidates who meet certain statutory requirements. Respondents filed suit, seeking, inter alia, a declaration that New York's convention system violates the First Amendment rights of challengers running against candidates favored by party leaders and an injunction mandating a direct primary election to select Supreme Court nominees. The Federal District Court issued a preliminary injunction, pending the enactment of a new state statutory scheme, and the Second Circuit affirmed.

Held: New York's system of choosing party nominees for the State Supreme Court does not violate the First Amendment. Pp. 5-12.

(a) Because a political party has a First Amendment right to limit its membership as it wishes, and to choose a candidate-selection process that will in its view produce the nominee who best represents its political platform, a State's power to prescribe party use of primaries or conventions to select nominees for the general election is not without limits. California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U. S. 567 . However, respondents, who claim their own associational right to join and have influence in the party, are in no position to rely on the right that the First Amendment confers on political parties. Pp. 5-7.

(b) Respondents' contention that New York's electoral system does not assure them a fair chance of prevailing in their parties' candidate-selection process finds no support in this Court's precedents. Even if Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U. S. 51 , which acknowledged an individual's associational right to vote in a party primary without undue state-imposed impediment, were extended to cover the right to run in a party primary, the New York law's signature and deadline requirements are entirely reasonable. A State may demand a minimum degree of support for candidate access to a ballot, see Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U. S. 431 . P. 7.

(c) Respondents' real complaint is that the convention process following the delegate election does not give them a realistic chance to secure their party's nomination because the party leadership garners more votes for its delegate slate and effectively determines the nominees. This says no more than that the party leadership has more widespread support than a candidate not supported by the leadership. Cases invalidating ballot-access requirements have focused on the requirements themselves, and not on the manner in which political actors function under those requirements. E.g., Bullock v. Carter, 405 U. S. 134 . Those cases do not establish an individual's constitutional right to have a "fair shot" at winning a party's nomination. Pp. 7-10.

(d) Respondents' argument that the existence of entrenched "one-party rule" in the State's general election demands that the First Amendment be used to impose additional competition in the parties' nominee-selection process is a novel and implausible reading of the First Amendment. Pp. 10-12.

462 F. 3d 161, reversed.

Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Stevens, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Alito, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Souter, J., joined. Kennedy, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Breyer, J., joined as to Part II.

Individuals may subtract from their federal taxable income certain itemized deductions, 26 U. S. C. sec.63(d), but only to the extent the deductions exceed 2% of adjusted gross income, sec.67(a). A trust may also take such deductions subject to the 2% floor, sec.67(e), except that when the relevant cost is "paid or incurred in connection with the administration of the ... trust" and "would not have been incurred if the property were not held in such trust," the cost may be deducted without regard to the floor, sec.67(e)(1). After petitioner Knight (Trustee), the trustee of a testamentary trust (Trust), hired the Warfield firm to advise as to Trust investments, the Trust deducted in full on its fiduciary income tax return the investment advisory fees paid to Warfield. Respondent Commissioner found the fees subject to the 2% floor and therefore allowed the deduction only to the extent the fees exceeded 2% of the Trust's adjusted gross income. The Tax Court decided for the Commissioner, and the Second Circuit affirmed, holding that because such fees were costs of a type that could be incurred if the property were held individually rather than in trust, their deduction by the Trust was subject to the 2% floor.

Held: Investment advisory fees generally are subject to the 2% floor when incurred by a trust. Pp. 5-13.

(a) In asking whether a particular type of cost incurred by a trust "would not have been incurred" if the property were held by an individual, sec.67(e)(1) excepts from the 2% floor only those costs that it would be uncommon (or unusual, or unlikely) for such a hypothetical individual to incur. The question whether a trust-related expense is fully deductible turns on a prediction about what would happen if a fact were changed--specifically, if the property were held by an individual rather than by a trust. Predictions are based on what would customarily or commonly occur. Thus, in the context of making such a prediction, when there is uncertainty about the answer, the word "would" is best read to express concepts such as custom, habit, natural disposition, or probability. Although the statutory text does not expressly ask whether expenses are "customarily" incurred outside of trusts, that is the direct import of the language in context. The Second Circuit's approach, which asks whether the cost at issue could have been incurred by an individual, flies in the face of the statutory language. Had Congress intended the Court of Appeals' reading, it easily could have replaced "would" with "could" in sec.67(e)(1), and presumably would have. The Trustee's argument that the proper inquiry is whether a particular expense of a particular trust was caused by the fact that the property was held in trust fails because the statute by its terms does not establish a straightforward causation test, but instead looks to the counterfactual question whether an individual would have incurred such costs in the absence of a trust. Further, under the Trustee's approach, every trust-related expense would be fully deductible, thus allowing the exception to the 2% floor in sec.67(e)(1) to swallow the general rule. Pp. 5-10.

(b) The Trust's investment advisory fees are subject to the 2% floor. The Trustee--who has the burden of establishing entitlement to the deduction, see, e.g., INDOPCO, Inc. v. Commissioner, 503 U. S. 79 --has not demonstrated that it is uncommon or unusual for individuals to hire an investment adviser. His argument is that individuals cannot incur trust investment advisory fees, not that individuals do not commonly incur investment advisory fees. Indeed, his essential point is that he engaged an investment adviser because of his fiduciary duties under Connecticut law, which requires a trustee to invest and manage trust assets "as a prudent investor would." This prudent investor standard plainly does not refer to a prudent trustee, but looks instead to what a prudent investor with the same investment objectives handling his own affairs would do--i.e., a prudent individual investor. Because a hypothetical prudent investor in petitioner's position would reasonably have solicited investment advice, it is quite difficult to say that the investment advisory fees "would not have been incurred"--i.e., that it would be unusual or uncommon for such fees to have been incurred--if the property were held by an individual investor with the same objectives as the Trust in handling his own affairs. While Congress's decision to phrase the pertinent inquiry in terms of a prediction about a hypothetical situation inevitably entails some uncertainty, that is no excuse for judicial amendment of the statute. The Code elsewhere poses similar questions, see, e.g., sec.sec.162(a), 212, and the inquiry is in any event what sec.67(e)(1) requires. Although some trust-related investment advisory fees may be fully deductible if an investment adviser were to impose a special, additional charge applicable only to its fiduciary accounts, there is nothing in the record to suggest that Warfield did so, or treated the Trust any differently than it would have treated an individual with similar objectives, because of the Trustee's fiduciary obligations. Nor does the Trust assert that its investment objectives or balancing of competing interests were so distinctive that any comparison with those of an individual investor would be improper. Pp. 10-13.

467 F. 3d 149, affirmed.

Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.