[Lurkinanloomin]

Barrett joining the court makes it 4.5 to 4.5.
Roberts and Gorsuch are not reliable.

[fhayek]

4.6 to 4.4, but who’s quibbling?

[Lisbon1940]

Why would we have the son of the first EPA administrator on the court?

[BillyBoy]

I would say a BEST case scenario (Barrett does indeed get confirmed and does indeed turn out to be a "Scalia-like judge"), would result in an evenly divided 3-3-3 court:

3 solid conservatives: Alito, Thomas, Barrett
3 generally right-of-center squishy judges can be swayed individually or collectively to join the leftist bloc: Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh
3 hard core reliable socialists: Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan

Looking at it objectively, the current Roberts court is FAR closer ideologically to the old Burger court in the 1970s ("Republican majority" on paper, though the CJ has no control over the court and leftists still routinely win "groundbreaking" cases that establish new "precedents" that move this country further and further left), than it is to the Rehnquist court of the late 90s and early 2000s (strongly conservative CJ and generally reliable conservative decisions, with the occasionally once-in-a-blue-moon awful 5-4 liberal ruling)

But, I think Trump fans and Trump haters BOTH live in some alternate reality fantasy where Trump was widely "successful" in putting tons of staunch conservatives in power, and will "cement a conservative majority for decades" just by adding one more judge.

I seriously doubt this "fact".

[Cuttnhorse]

Barrett joining the court makes it 4.5 to 4.5. Roberts and Gorsuch are not reliable.

We have no idea how reliable Amy Barrett will be.