A mail carrier in Washington DC on 18 August 2020. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s announcement that he was postponing operational changes to USPS came after days of heavy scrutiny and on the day more than 20 states were set to file a lawsuit challenging the changes.
On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also recalled the House of Representatives to Washington to deal with USPS funding.
There were protests outside DeJoy’s home last weekend and the postmaster general is set to appear before the Senate committee on homeland security and governmental affairs on Friday and the House oversight committee next week. The USPS inspector general is also investigating the changes.
USPS has always maintained it has the capacity to deliver election mail in the fall, but many experts expressed deep concern about whether the reported delays would affect the November election.
Ron Stroman, who stepped down as the number two official at USPS in June, told the Guardian last week that making operational changes just months before the election was “a high-risk proposition”.
Democratic Senator Gary Peters expressed lingering concerns about the US Postal Service, despite Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s announcement that he would delay operational changes until after the presidential election.
Peters is the top Democrat on the Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee, which will hold a hearing with DeJoy on Friday.
“There is simply no excuse for why Postmaster General DeJoy began instituting changes that have severely disrupted service for Michiganders and people in communities all across the country during an unprecedented public health and economic crisis,” Peters said in a statement.
“While it is a positive development that the Postmaster General says he will be temporarily rolling back some of these harmful changes as I have demanded – there are still too many unanswered questions.”
Peters specifically questioned whether DeJoy would be restoring mail sorting machines that had already been removed from some USPS locations and whether he was leaving any of his already-implemented changes in place. The Michigan senator pledged to press DeJoy on those issues during Friday’s hearing.
Peters said, “Given how much the American people are relying on the Postal Service during these challenging times, the Postmaster General should not making any changes that put mail delivery at risk before the election or for the duration of the Coronavirus public health emergency.”
Hey, Trump, what goes around comes around. 