What’s ahead for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court returns to the bench Monday, a week after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Will Scalia’s vote count in cases argued before his death?

[...] the majority opinions he was drafting will need to be reassigned to other justices.

Would a new justice be able to vote on cases argued before he or she was confirmed?

When it was argued in January, it seemed clear that the court was headed toward a closely divided decision in which the conservative majority would rule that workers who chose not to join public unions could not be made to pay for the union’s collective bargaining work.

The likely outcome now is a deadlock that would leave in place a decision from the federal appeals court in California upholding the mandatory payments.