An immediate consequence of the witch's death (before there's another nomination): What happens in a SC tie (4:4) I found no discussion about this aspect, so sorry, here's another RBG thread about this question. Please correct me if the rules have changed, but that's what I found: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/02/what-happens-in-a-supreme-court-tie.html Although rare, 4-4 ties are hardly unheard-of—justices do recuse themselves from time to time. A split decision effectively upholds the ruling of the lower court (presumably a state supreme court). In the event of such a tie, the court typically issues what’s known as a per curiam decision...  When a 4-4 deadlock does occur, the case is not deemed to have set any sort of precedent.  https://ballotpedia.org/What_happens_to_this_term%27s_major_SCOTUS_cases_in_a_4-4_split The unexpected death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on February 13, 2016, created the possibility that the court would issue numerous 4-4 decisions during the 2015-2016 term. However, the court was mostly able to avoid deadlocking, issuing just four 4-4 ties in the 81 decisions delivered during the term. Two of the 4-4 splits were in major cases—Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association and United States v. Texas.[1] In those cases, the lower court's ruling was upheld. Before Justice Scalia's death, the last time the court issued a 4-4 ruling was in the 2010 copyright infringement case, Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Omega, in which Justice Elena Kagan recused herself.[2] https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/feb/14/supreme-court-vote-eight-justices-deadlock-nomination-scalia-obama “The best way to say it, if it’s 4-4, it’s as if the court had never even heard the case,” said Russell Wheeler, a federal courts expert at the Brookings Institution. “The decision below stands, but it has no precedential value. The consequence is that some cases can be won in the lower courts and can not be overruled by a 4:4 SC decision.  So the situation has already improved, even before a new nomination!