Ginsberg and Scalia were best buds. Don't be surprised if she resigns.
A court of 7? There is no minimum that I know of...but I believe the max is 12.
Revising my post 9.....9 justices, 8 are associates, 6 is a quorum
IIRC, there is nothing in the Constitution or U.S. Code which numerically specifies the makeup of the Supreme Court.
Look up Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to “pack” the Supreme Court in 1937. He had just been reelected in a landslide and the Justices, the oldest in the Court’s history, were thwarting several of his New Deal programs.
Roosevelt had his allies in Congress introduce a bill which would add one additional justice to the Supreme Court for every current member over age 70, for a total of four.
Won’t spoil the ending because it was a cliffhanger but I suggest googling the quip “A switch in time saved nine”.
Article III of the United States Constitution leaves it to Congress to fix the number of justices. The Judiciary Act of 1789 called for the appointment of six justices, and as the nation's boundaries grew, Congress added justices to correspond with the growing number of judicial circuits: seven in 1807, nine in 1837, and ten in 1863.
In 1866, at the behest of Chief Justice Chase, Congress passed an act providing that the next three justices to retire would not be replaced, which would thin the bench to seven justices by attrition. Consequently, one seat was removed in 1866 and a second in 1867. In 1869, however, the Circuit Judges Act returned the number of justices to nine, where it has since remained.