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This has taken the identical path as all the other suits:
a) Submitted and denied by Justice X
b) Resubmitted to Justice Y
c) Distributed (to full Court) by Justice Y for conference on Date Z.

If this is handled like all the others, on Date Z (January 23, in this case) the Court will refuse to approve a full hearing (without comment) and the case will be dead.

My understanding is that if Justice Y were to simply deny the case, there is nothing to stop it being resubmitted to each and every justice, i.e., 7 more times, before it finally died. Thus, scheduling for conference is a more expeditious way to dispose of the case, both time-wise and in terms of SC’s time and staff resources. I think what’s unusual about these BC cases is that most petitioners quit after step a).

In short, while it’s POSSIBLE that the conference scheduled on January 23 is a hopeful sign, the odds are against it. In contrast, were a conference scheduled by the FIRST justice to consider the petition, that would be a more hopeful sign. Even though the Justices differ with one another, they know each other well enough not to play games. That is, there’s no point in putting forward a case in which it’s obvious there would be a 9-0 vote against the party bringing the case (absurd example, but presumably non-controversial: suppose someone thought to restore Plessy v. Ferguson by invalidating Brown v. Board of Education—i.e., re-allow “separate but equal” schools? I don’t think even Thomas or Scalia would think that meritorious. So while they might possibly think that constraining the power of government to achieve integration is in order, a complete junking of Brown v. Board wouldn’t be the recommended path to get there).

Likewise, on a closely divided matter, I don’t think an individual justice is going to deny having the Court at least consider hearing the case in hopes of protecting his/her own possibly minority view on the issue at hand. Because they would know that eventually, the 5 justices who thought such a case had merit would inevitably find out about such duplicitous behavior and this could severely impair collegiality. I don’t want to argue the Court is completely without rancor, but unlike Senate or House, collegiality still is a far more predominant norm in SC than elsewhere in government.