Ballots priority, postmaster vows
He tells senators deliveries for election a ‘sacred duty’
WASHINGTON — Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Friday that the agency will continue to prioritize ballots over other mail, as it has in past elections, expressing support for the practice of voting by mail.
“As we head into the election season, I want to assure this committee and the American public that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nation’s election mail securely and on time,” DeJoy told senators. “This sacred duty is my No. 1 priority between now and Election Day.”
It was the first time the leader of the U.S. Postal Service has publicly answered lawmakers’ questions about mail slowdowns attributed to his cost-cutting policies that have spurred worries about the delivery of ballots for the November election.
DeJoy, a former logistics executive, announced he would suspend those policies — including cutting overtime and prohibiting extra mail-delivery trips — and would halt the removal of mail-sorting machines and public mailboxes before Nov. 3. But DeJoy told senators that he has no plans to restore the equipment, saying
it’s “not needed.”
DeJoy also is considering an overhaul of the agency, which has struggled for many years, after the vote, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
The Postal Service does not need a federal bailout to deliver mail on election night, but could use “reimbursement” to help cover losses incurred by the pandemic, DeJoy told senators.
“I don’t need anything to deliver mail on election night, but we do need legislative reform, we do need freedom from a change in the [Postal Regulatory Commission] regulation, and we do need to be reimbursed for our costs,” he said, echoing recent statements by the White House.
“I’m trying to get to a sustainable model, but in this case, I believe we deserve some compensation for it,” he added.
Democrats support $25 billion in emergency funding that the Postal Service sought earlier this year. This week, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the administration is “certainly open” to that amount, depending on the other provisions that are contained in the coronavirus relief package. But Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has repeatedly said that the Postal Service does not need a bailout to deliver election mail.
DeJoy also defended his general approach and qualifications to lead the Postal Service, after prompting from Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.
“I built a big business from nothing,” DeJoy said. “There are some accusations that [the Postal Service] is not a business, but when you have to deliver service and you have to be sustainable, the operating model has to cover costs, and we have to take actions to do that, and I have great experience at that.”
NOT AWARE OF ‘PROCESS’
DeJoy described the removal of mail-collection boxes and sorting machines as typical within the Postal Service and denied he knew anything about them or the process behind the decisions before the issue became a source of public controversy.
“Since my arrival, we’ve removed 700 collection boxes, of which I had no idea that was a process,” he said, adding that he “decided to stop it” once he “found out about it” and all of the “excitement it was creating.”
Mail-sorting machines were removed regularly in previous years when data showed underutilization, he said, calling it a “process I was not aware about” until it got a “lot of airplay.”
“I was made aware when everybody else was made aware,” he said, calling the removals “not a critical issue within the Postal Service.”
DeJoy also defended delays in mail delivery as a temporary part of limited structural changes that he said will strengthen on-time service and produce cost-savings across the Postal Service in the near future.
“We had some delays in the mail and our recovery process in this should have been a few days and it’s amounted to being a few weeks,” he said.
Democrats have suggested recent slowdowns and cutbacks at the post office may be part of an effort to suppress voting.
DeJoy called allegations of political intent an “outrageous claim.” He said he’s voted by mail for years. “I think the American public should be able to vote by mail.”
“I’m going to vote by mail myself,” the longtime Republican fundraiser said under questioning from Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who also said he plans to vote by mail.
DeJoy urged the public to “vote early” and highlighted cases in recent primaries where mail ballots were issued the day before the election, giving the Postal Service little time to ferry the ballot to and from the voter before the deadline.
He said his efforts were intended to “safeguard the election, safeguard the processing of ballots, not to get in the way of it” and expressed regrets about recent delivery delays across the system.
“We all feel bad about what the dip in our service level has been,” he said.
‘REAL CONCERNS’
Senate Democrats defended their criticism of DeJoy’s operational changes Friday after the committee’s Republican chairman accused the “left” of fabricating complaints as part of a “political hit job.”
“These are real concerns I’m hearing,” said Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the panel’s ranking Democrat. “These are not manufactured. These are people who are coming forward talking about delays, talking about medicine [that] is not available for them. … This is why we’re standing up and making sure the Postal Service does what they have done [in the past]” to guarantee good service.
Peters urged DeJoy and his staff to be “fully forthcoming” in response to inquiries from Capitol Hill.
“I know you have a very hard job, and frankly, I think you’ve made it harder on yourself because of the lack of transparency we’ve seen these last few weeks,” he said.
Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., echoed those concerns, telling DeJoy he has “got to be willing to communicate” like other members of the Trump administration, such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
“With all due respect to our postmaster,” Carper said, “I reached out to you when you were initially selected. … I tried to reach you again and again for weeks.”
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the committee chairman, cast doubt on what Democrats described as national, grassroots concerns about the performance of the Postal Service.
“There is also no doubt a lot of this is being ginned up,” Johnson said, accusing Democrats of promoting a “false narrative designed to extract a political advantage.”
“I’m just very sorry that you are on the targeting end of this political hit piece,” he told DeJoy.
Democrats pressed him for his plan to ensure election mail and ballots arrive on time.
“Do you have a more detailed plan?” demanded Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, asking for it by Sunday.
“I don’t think we’ll have a complete plan by Sunday night,” DeJoy replied, acknowledging it was just being formed.
Under questioning, DeJoy said he never discussed post office operations with Trump or specific policy changes with Mnuchin.
The postmaster general also is set to testify Monday before the House Oversight Committee with Robert Duncan, chairman of the Postal Service Board of Governors.
$10 BILLION RESCUE
Meanwhile, the House is pushing ahead with plans for a rare weekend vote today to block the postal cutbacks and funnel $25 billion to shore up operations. Republicans are mounting a counteroffensive, saying the concerns about mail delivery are overblown and the money is unnecessary.
In a memo to House Republicans, leaders called the legislation a “conspiracy theory” by Democrats to “spread fear and misinformation” about mail operations.
Nevertheless, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is looking at a $10 billion postal rescue as part of the next coronavirus relief package.
The Postal Service has been struggling financially under a decline in mail volume, virus-related costs and what critics call, a cumbersome congressional requirement to fund in advance its retiree health care benefits.
Separately attorneys general in Pennsylvania, California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit on Friday to halt the postal changes. In all, some 20 states and several voting rights-groups are now suing.
Agency leaders have interfered with how states conduct elections, “and thus violated plaintiffs’ constitutional authority to set the ‘Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives,’” the plaintiffs stated in the suit, quoting from the U.S. Constitution.
The Democratic attorneys general say the new policies were adopted without following federal law, asking to prevent them from being implemented. They also want a monitor appointed to oversee compliance with any court order.
Information for this article was contributed by Jacob Bogage, Elise Viebeck, Michael Brice-Saddler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee of The Washington Post; by Lisa Mascaro, Anthony Izaguirre, Christina A. Cassidy, Bruce Schreiner and Mark Scolforo of The Associated Press; and by Daniel Flatley and Todd Shields of Bloomberg News.