House Dems summon USPS leaders
Pelosi calling back lawmakers to vote on postal measure
BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that she is calling the House back into session this week to vote on a bill prohibiting the U.S. Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service.
The action comes amid growing concerns that the Trump White House is trying to undermine the agency during the coronavirus pandemic while states expand mail-in voting options.
In a letter to Democratic lawmakers Sunday, Pelosi also called on her colleagues to appear at a post office in their district Tuesday for a coordinated news event. “In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central. Americans should not have to choose between their health and their vote,” she wrote.
Pelosi said House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland would soon announce the legislative schedule for the coming week. House Democrats were likely to discuss the schedule on a conference call Monday and were expected to be in session Saturday, a senior Democratic aide said on condition of anonymity because the plans were private.
Earlier Sunday, Democratic lawmakers demanded that leaders of the Postal Service testify at an emergency oversight hearing Aug. 24 on mail delays.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee said it wants to hear from new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and from the chair of the Postal Service board of governors, Robert “Mike” Duncan.
The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether the men would appear before the committee. But it said Sunday that it would stop removing mailboxes through mid-November following complaints from customers and members of Congress that the collection boxes were being taken away.
“Given the recent customer concerns the Postal Service will postpone removing boxes for a period of 90 days while we evaluate our customers’ concerns,” Postal Service spokeswoman Kimberly Frum said.
DeJoy, a major Republican donor and ally of the president who took control of the agency in June, has pledged to modernize the money-losing agency to make it more efficient and has eliminated most overtime for postal workers, imposed restrictions on transportation and reduced of the quantity and use of mail-processing equipment.
“The postmaster general and top Postal Service leadership must answer to the Congress and the American people as to why they are pushing these dangerous new policies that threaten to silence the voices of millions, just months before the election,” congressional Democrats said in a statement announcing the hearing.
The lawmakers included Pelosi of California and New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the committee chair, along with Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the Postal Service.
President Donald Trump said last week that he was blocking a $25 billion emergency injection sought by the Postal Service, as well as a Democratic proposal to provide $3.6 billion in additional election money to the states.
The Republican president worries that mail-in voting could cost him a second term.
The money for the post office is intended to help with processing an expected surge of mail-in ballots. Both funding requests have been tied up in congressional negotiations over a new coronavirus relief package.
On Saturday, Trump tried to massage his message, saying he supports increasing money for the Postal Service. He said he was refusing to capitulate to Democrats on other parts of the relief package, including funding for states weighed down by debt accumulated before the pandemic.
But the president’s critics were not appeased, contending that Trump has made the calculation that a lower voter turnout would improve his chances of being reelected.
“What you are witnessing is a president of the United States who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to engage in mail-in balloting at a time when people will be putting their lives on the line by having to go out to a polling station and vote,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said.
Funding a cash-strapped Postal Service has become a top campaign issue as Trump presses his unsupported claim that increased mail-in voting will undermine the credibility of the election and Democrats push back.
Trump has derided universal mail-in voting as a “scam” and defended DeJoy as the right person to “streamline the post office.”
His chief of staff tried Sunday to counter criticism that Trump was trying to stifle turnout with national and battleground state polls showing him facing a difficult path to reelection against Democrat Joe Biden.
“I’ll give you that guarantee right now: The president of the United States is not going to interfere with anybody casting their vote in a legitimate way, whether it’s the post office or anything else,” Mark Meadows said.
Sanders was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while Meadows appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union.”