'I have a very good relationship with my colleagues,' Boehner says. Boehner iffy about future

SAN ANTONIO — John Boehner says he fully expects to be speaker of the House after the next election.

But whether he serves a whole term is another question.


The Ohio Republican, speaking to a luncheon here sponsored by a group of local chambers of commerce, said he can’t “predict what’s going to happen” and stopped short of fully committing to serving another full two-year term.

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“Listen, I’m going to be 65 years old in November,” Boehner said. “I never thought I’d live to be 60. So I’m living on borrowed time.”

It’s extraordinarily rare for Boehner to sit down for an open-ended, live interview, but he did so here with the Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith, a mainstay of the Lone Star State’s journalism scene. He touched on issues ranging from immigration to Benghazi to his quiet campaign to persuade Jeb Bush to run for president.

The interview came less than six months before Election Day, when Republicans are expected to keep — if not expand — their majority in the House and potentially wrest control of the Senate from Democrats.

But Boehner’s noncommittal response about his future will reverberate from here all the way back to Capitol Hill and K Street. His future has been a topic of constant chatter among political types. Even people inside his orbit privately wonder why the Ohio Republican would want to serve another term wielding the speaker’s gavel, given the tumultuous political climate in Washington. Last week, Boehner beat back two primary opponents to ensure his House reelection.

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Uncertainty about Boehner’s future is mostly due to dissent within the House Republican ranks. A small — but somewhat vocal — pocket of conservatives is frustrated with Boehner’s leadership. The group is small and unlikely to cause Boehner anything but heartburn.

“I’m up for reelection, and I expect to be speaker, and this issuecomes up from time to time, probably more often than I’d like. I have a very good relationship with my colleagues — on both sides of the aisle,” Boehner said. “And even in my own party, even with some people who we have disagreements [with] almost every day, I have a good relationship with them as well. It’s open, it’s honest, and it’s straightforward. So I look forward to it.”

It was just one topic Boehner touched upon in a 35-minute interview at a Marriott here in downtown San Antonio.

Even if Boehner’s own future is uncertain, he clearly has his eye on 2016. While saying it’s too early in the presidential season to pick favorites for the GOP nomination, the speaker said he’s been trying to persuade Bush, the former Florida governor, to run for the White House.

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“We have a lot of good candidates out in the field,” Boehner said. “Historically, our best candidates have come from the ranks of governors, or former governors. And yes, Jeb Bush is my friend; I think he’d make a great president. And I’ve been nudging him for some time.”

Boehner’s appearance here came during a fundraising swing through Texas, a deep red state that is slowly becoming bluer. On Monday morning, he hosted a fundraiser featuring Texas Reps. Lamar Smith, Michael McCaul, Roger Williams and Bill Flores. It’s because of his breakneck fundraising pace that many believe Boehner will stay in Congress.

But some in D.C. have taken Boehner’s vocal support for immigration reform as a sign he’s on his way out. Here, in a state with a booming immigrant population, Boehner said that he thinks Democrats and Republicans are “getting closer on the policy side, in terms of how to deal with this.” That would be news to most in D.C., who see immigration reform as terminally stalled.

But Boehner is at least talking like there’s a prayer. If reform sees action, Boehner said it will be in bite-size bills that hit the floor over a period of one week to one month. He said securing the border would be the first piece of legislation that gets a vote.

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But Boehner was noncommittal on a pathway for citizenship for the nation’s undocumented immigrants.

“When it comes to this citizenship question, I think here’s the test,” Boehner said. “There are a lot of people who waited in line, went through the process, as the law points out, and some of them took 10 years, 20 years to get through the process. They are the people that I will look to. Because whatever it is that we agree on, that’s the straight-face test: How do the people who did this the hard way, how do they feel about this process?”

In reality, the House doesn’t appear poised to pass immigration reform, and many have chalked that up to the heat of an election year. Not Boehner, though.

“I have not let my colleagues do this to me, and I have not let the Washington press corps do this to me,” he said. “This is not about politics. It’s not about elections; it’s about doing the right thing for the American people. It’s about doing the right thing for the country. Period.”

Boehner might not see immigration reform as political, but he’s keenly aware of the politics of his party’s probe into the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi.

Boehner said if House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declines to appoint Democrats to a new select committee designed to investigate the attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost, the GOP will have to “adhere to a higher standard.” But he vowed the absence of Democrats would not impede the investigation.

Boehner also promised that the creation of the select committee probing the deadly attacks on Benghazi was not a rebuke of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the controversial chairman of the House Oversight Committee. He said he decided to exclude all chairmen from the panel.

Asked about the National Republican Congressional Committee’s fundraising off Benghazi, Boehner said he’s “not involved in it.”

“Listen, I’m involved in this investigation, I’m not involved in what goes on in the campaign committee,” Boehner said. “All I know is that we’re trying to get to the truth here. And I’ve got to believe that the Democrats are probably fundraising off of Benghazi just like we are. Do you think when we had [Hurricane] Katrina, they weren’t fundraising [off of that]? I don’t know what the fundraising arm is doing. All I know is that it’s time to get to the truth.”