The rats have already gotten part of what they wanted. SCOTUS starts a new session on monday. (first monday in October) He will not be there. I heard somewhere, that a Justice who joins the court after the term begins cannot vote on cases that were deliberated before he joined. Anybody know if that is true?
It's sort of true. But there are caveats to that.
1. It's not based on a law of any kind. It's a Supreme Court tradition.
2. The Supreme Court generally tries to avoid scheduling oral arguments for cases with national implications when they only have eight justices. They don't want a 4-4 ruling in a landmark case. Someone here on FR posted a link to the 2018-19 Supreme Court schedule a few days ago, and most of the cases scheduled on the docket for October looked pretty inconsequential to me.
3. In the event a new justice joins the Supreme Court after the session has already begun, the Court has the option of re-opening the deliberations and scheduling another round of oral arguments with the new justice in place just so they'll be sure to get nine voting members in that case.