Well, one of the most conservative SCOTUS justices passed away. Justice Scalia is gone. The SCOTUS is supposed to have 9 justices so as to allow for majority decisions. Now, there are 8... 4 who lean left, 3 who lean right, and 1 who has been a swing vote on a number of issues. What happens now?? President Obama will not see any nominee of his confirmed by the Senate. Any nomination on his part will never see the required simply majority of the Senate. And, he knows that. Other options are.... A POTUS can make a recess appointment to the SCOTUS. IOW, Obama can appoint a Justice during a Senate recess. That Justice would serve, I believe, for 2 years and then would have to stand for further confirmation. The Senate majority understands this option and will work some political move to eliminate a recess. So, we are probably going to see the 8 member Court until after the November election. A Clinton or Sanders win in November... The Senate will probably not lose its GOP majority in November. With the vitriol that we've seen for the last 7 1/2 years, we would assume any nominee of a Democratic POTUS would not be confirmed... no matter how moderate. A Cruz win in November... Cruz would nominate a very socially conservative person to the Court. (The nominee does not have to be an attorney or a sitting judge. He could nominate a pastor or any religious leader.) All he would need for confirmation would be a simply majority of the Senate. The Democratic minority could filibuster a Cruz nominee and there have been some nominees through history not attain confirmation due to filibusters. A Trump win in November... That would make for some interesting "fun". Trump has made all kinds of promises as to what will happen the first day he is in office. Depending on how a nomination of Trumps is perceived... and how well the GOP majority is behind Trump as POTUS... confirmation could go either way. Understand, Trump could nominate someone like Jack Welch, former GE CEO... or even a Sean Hannity to the SCOTUS. In the meantime, the 8 person court will see some interesting decisions... or non-decisions. If the decision is a 4/4 tie... the lower court ruling stands.