Pennsylvania judge temporarily blocks changes to Postal Service
A federal judge in Philadelphia granted a request Monday to block changes to the U.S. Postal Service that have slowed mail deliveries, citing the potential for “irreparable harm” as large numbers of voters prepare to cast ballots by mail.
Judge Gerald McHugh of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s decision to eliminate extra transportation and overtime, as well as remove mail processing equipment, have posed a threat to states’ abilities to conduct a fair election.
The Postal Service’s “ability to fulfill its mission during a presidential election taking place in the midst of a public health crisis is vital,” McHugh wrote in his 87 pages of remarks following Thursday’s threehour hearing at Philadelphia’s federal courthouse. “The record in this case strongly supports the conclusion that irreparable harm will result unless its ability to operate is assured.”
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro led the lawsuit, which named DeJoy and Robert Duncan, chairman of the USPS board of governors. The suit was joined by Delaware; California; the District of
Columbia; Maine; Massachusetts, and North Carolina.
“This is a major victory and confirms — for every senior who has not received their timely shipment of prescription drugs and every voter who needs the reliable delivery of their mail-in ballots — that Postmaster General DeJoy was making false promises,” Shapiro said in a statement.
“The Postal Service cannot make random, negative changes that affect Pennsylvanians’ daily lives, and the court is helping to ensure that everyone has full faith in the Postal Service at this critical time.”
Lawyers from Pennsylvania’s Office of the Attorney General argued the changes were made illegally because DeJoy changed operations without first seeking approval from the Postal Regulatory Commission. McHugh said that “these policy changes resulted in mail being left behind — until that point a ‘cardinal sin’ among the 600,000 employees of the Postal Service.”
Postal records show the agency was meeting its service standards for first-class mail roughly 92% of the time in May 2020, the month before DeJoy took over.
By August, it had dropped to 81%.