For Republicans, Supreme Court Trumps Trump

Former Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner has very little to lose by abandoning his party’s nominee for president, Donald Trump, in light of the candidate’s recent sexual assault scandals and incendiary rhetoric. But last week Boehner told Fox News, in his first sit-down interview since leaving office a little more than a year ago, that he plans to vote for Trump in November. The reason? “In my view, the election is pretty simple,” Boehner said. “The only thing that really matters over the next four years or eight years is who is going to appoint the next Supreme Court nominees.” The Republican Senate has managed to keep the current Supreme Court vacancy unfilled by refusing for more than eight months to hold hearings on Obama’s nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. And the oldest members of the Court include Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, age 83, Anthony Kennedy, age 80, and Stephen Breyer, age 78. Boehner elaborated that, given the legislative logjam in Washington, which shows no signs of abating, the Supreme Court is more important than ever. “More and more issues, because they can’t be dealt with legislatively, are going to be dealt with by the court system,” he said. “So I believe that Donald Trump’s view of who these judges should be is much closer to where I am than the judges Hillary Clinton would appoint.”