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When New Yorkers vote in the presidential primary on April 19, the stakes couldn’t be higher. If Republicans continue to refuse to hold hearings on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court, the next president will make the appointment. If you have been paying attention to the awful rhetoric from the Republican candidates this campaign season, you know how devastating a victory for their side could be for us — for unions and for working people around the country. 

When President Obama selected Judge Garland to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the high court, he went for a consensus candidate — someone that Republicans and Democrats should have been able to get behind in normal times. But these aren’t normal times. The right wing that increasingly controls the national Republican Party is not interested in the niceties of democracy. These politicians will do almost anything to entrench their power.

Judge Garland has had a distinguished career on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for nearly 20 years. He is a centrist, but his record regarding labor appears to be fair: The National Law Journal reported that in his 20 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals, Judge Garland has mostly upheld the National Labor Relations Board rulings on behalf of workers. He also has a history of upholding court precedent, which should work in our favor in the anti-union Friedrichs case, where the plaintiffs are seeking to overturn a 40-year-old Supreme Court ruling that declared agency-fee arrangements legal.

But Republican leaders in the Senate have dug in their heels, refusing to grant Judge Garland a hearing. No presidential nominee to the high court has ever been denied a hearing. Vice President Joe Biden, addressing that intransigence, said that “in my 36 years in the United States Senate, the Constitution was always our guidepost. Which meant that every single Supreme Court nominee got a hearing, a committee vote, and a floor vote.”

Our message to the U.S. Senate is simple: Do your job and give Judge Garland a fair hearing and an up or down vote, as other nominees have been given.

If the Republicans succeed in blocking Garland’s appointment, the November presidential election becomes that much more crucial for us. We can’t afford to have an anti-union, anti-worker candidate make the next selection on the court. The consequences for public-sector unions across this country would be devastating. 

If a Republican wins the Oval Office, the Supreme Court would be controlled by conservatives for a generation. It would be that court that would decide the Friedrichs case if it is not resolved this year. A victory for our opponents would punch a hole in the financial structure of public-sector unions, debilitating them at a time when working people across this country are losing ground.

The April 19 presidential primary is our first opportunity to make our voices heard. When it comes to elections, our concern is what is in the best interests of our members and the public school students many of them serve. We are in grave danger if either of the leading Republican candidates wins. Both Ted Cruz and Donald Trump support the privatization of public education. One of Trump’s main advisers is Carl Icahn, the financier who founded a chain of charter schools and was also a good friend to Michael Bloomberg. Our school system is still recovering from the Bloomberg mess — the mindless imposition of corporate practices on education. Trump is on record as loving “right to work” — in other words, he prefers a workforce with no rights or leverage against the powerful and wealthy. Neither Trump nor Cruz believes in unions, retirement security or pensions. 

We need a candidate who is good on our issues and can win this race. The AFT, our national union, has endorsed Hillary Clinton, and that means we have, too. At this point in the nation’s primaries, the numbers are the numbers.

Clinton has persevered in the face of some of the most outlandish accusations ever hurled at a public figure — as a first lady, a U.S. senator and a secretary of state. She understands the wheels of government as few others do. As president, she would hit the ground running. 

As always, our retirees — energetic and politically engaged — are leading the way. They have volunteered for the AFT in every state with a primary to get the vote out for Clinton.

This year’s presidential race is extremely critical. In my lifetime, the difference has never been so stark. If you believe in working people and the labor movement, you will join this important fight.

We have to stop the two leading Republican candidates for president from ever occupying the White House.