Tensions, conflicts grow across U.S. over adjustments to Postal Service
Pa. to lead multistate coalition in lawsuit over USPS changes
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced Tuesday that his office will be filing a federal lawsuit to challenge “nationwide operation changes at the U.S. Postal Service.”
Mr. Shapiro said the lawsuit will be filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The state attorney general is joined by several Democratic attorneys general across the country in suing the agency and its new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, to reverse changes that have disrupted mail-delivery operations and have stoked fears about mail-in ballot deliveries.
Those changes are “illegal,” Mr. Shapiro said during a virtual news conference with U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, Gov. Tom Wolf and rural Pennsylvanians who reported delays in receiving their medical prescriptions.
Maryland is signing onto a suit led by Washington state and also includes Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to a draft of the suit obtained by The Washington Post.
Separately, Pennsylvania is expected to be joined by California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts and North Carolina, among others.
“Here’s the result of some of those procedural changes made back in July: Mail was left in boxes on trucks waiting to be delivered, mail taking two or three times as long just to be delivered, paychecks going uncashed, bills going unpaid,” he said.
“I’m here to tell you today that that conduct is illegal. There is a process for these things — one that requires going before the Postal Regulatory Commission and holding public hearings — but none of that happened here. Postmaster General DeJoy skipped over the opinions of experts and voices of the people. He opted instead to do what he and President Trump wanted to do,” Mr. Shapiro continued.
The announcement came roughly within the same hour of Mr. DeJoy changing course on operational cutbacks, including reinstating overtime.
“To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded,” he said in a written statement.
President Donald Trump appointed Mr. DeJoy, a businessman and Republican Party fundraiser, to postmaster general in June.
On July 27, Mr. DeJoy announced the agency would “improve operational efficiency and ...
further control overtime expenditures,” attributing the reason for the changes to findings from a June Postal Service inspector general report.
But Mr. Shapiro says those actions “failed to follow the required processes laid out in law and violates Pennsylvania’s right under the United States Constitution.”
“Perhaps because they didn’t want the experts to weigh in on the process, and it’s also a process that allows for public comment and notice. So Pennsylvanians were denied the legal right to be able to speak on these issues,” the attorney general continued. “Here’s the other thing: The actions by this administration impede on Pennsylvania’s ability to conduct free and fair elections.”
Mr. Wolf, calling on federal legislators to fund the agency, said the COVID-19 pandemic “has made mail-in voting more important than ever before” and that “we are relying on the Postal Service to undergird our democracy.”
“No Pennsylvanian will henceforth have to choose between voting and the risk of picking up a virus at a crowded polling place. Ballots will come to their doors safely and securely. … [To] destroy the service that carries these ballots is to undermine the very framework that our founders built,” Mr. Wolf said.
Mr. Trump has repeated baseless claims about voting by mail.
“You can’t have millions and millions of ballots sent all over the place, sent to people that are dead, sent to dogs, cats, sent everywhere,” Mr. Trump told reporters.
Two Pennsylvanians joined Mr. Casey, Mr. Wolf and Mr. Shapiro on Tuesday’s call to sound the alarm on threats to mail delivery.
“I get medical supplies from Medicare, they come through the mail. I have several prescriptions, some of them for my heart, that without them I may end up back in the hospital or, who knows, something much worse,” said Charles Baldoff, a retired U.S. Navy and Air Force master sergeant, who lives in Mercer County. “I’m planning on voting by mail in the fall elections. I have several medical issues that if I’m to stand in line and get COVID-19, it’d probably be a death sentence for me.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, DForest Hills, who represents the commonwealth’s 18th Congressional District, has reported constituents in the Pittsburgh area complaining of U.S. mail delays.
Cutting overtime when staffing is “barebones” has been an issue, said Chuck Pugar, president of the Pittsburgh Metro American Postal Workers Union, which represents roughly 2,000 local workers.
“Do I hear routinely that the Postal Service didn’t bring in a substitute letter carrier because someone called off sick? Yes. Or that mail arrived a little bit late at one of these [postal] offices? Do I hear that they’re happening? Sure.”
He continued: “When they ran out of time to cut, they start cutting services. These postal managers, they’re not as stupid as some might think. … These people aren’t just giving out overtime because they think it’s candy.”
Mr. Pugar said five mailprocessing machines at the main Pittsburgh Post Office on California Avenue have been “unplugged” but that he could not attribute it to one factor.
Several Postal Service employees at branches around the Pittsburgh area refused to speak Tuesday.
One delivery driver on a route in Pittsburgh’s southern neighborhoods reported disruptions, call-offs and a revolving door of new drivers.
“There’s mismanagement,” he said on the condition on anonymity.
Tad Kelley, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Western Pennsylvania, declined to answer questions about staffing, instead deferring to statements made my Mr. DeJoy.
Regarding blue postal boxes, Mr. Kelley said in a written statement that the agency “reviews collection box density every year on a routine basis to identify redundant/seldom-used collection boxes as First-Class Mail volume continues to decline . ... Given the recent customer concerns, the Postal Service will postpone removing boxes for a period of 90 days while we evaluate our customers’ concerns.”
Congress is not in session, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called the House back to Washington over the crisis at the Postal Service, setting up a political showdown amid growing concerns that the Trump White House is trying to undermine the agency ahead of the election.
The House is expected to vote Saturday on legislation that would prohibit changes at the agency. The package will also include $25 billion to shore up the Postal Service, which faces continued financial losses.
Mr. Trump made clear last week that he would block emergency aid to the agency.
Mr. Wolf urged Pennsylvanians to apply for and submit their mail-in ballots “as soon as possible.”