As they should….
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic leaders will summon the House back in session this coming week to confront President Donald Trump’s attempts to undermine the U.S. Postal Service, she announced Sunday night.
The House is expected to vote as early as Saturday, Aug. 22, on a proposal to block the Trump administration’s plan for overhauling the Postal Service. This is weeks earlier than Pelosi and the House Democratic leaders had originally planned to return to Washington. But the revised House schedule comes amid a national uproar over a crisis within the Postal Service ahead of a national election that will see an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots.
Democrats have grown increasingly alarmed that Trump is using the coronavirus pandemic to force service cutbacks at USPS ahead of Nov. 3. Democrats allege Trump’s appointee to lead the Postal Service, Louis DeJoy, has overseen substantial operational changes to the agency that has led to backlogs and service interruptions — an immense concern as millions of Americans prepare to receive and return their ballots through the mail.
“That is why I am calling upon the House to return to session later this week to vote on Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman [Carolyn] Maloney’s ‘Delivering for America Act,’ which prohibits the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on January 1, 2020.”
Pelosi said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) would formally announce the new schedule on a call with members set for Monday. The next set of House votes had orignally been slated for the week of Sept. 14 before this latest uproar.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a Trump ally, claimed Democrats are trying to focus on the Postal Service’s problems because they weren’t able to reach a deal with the White House over a new coronavirus relief package….
Over in the US Senate this….
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Sunday that a key Senate panel should hold public hearings with U.S. Postal Service (USPS) leadership and that the chamber should return early if the House passes related legislation.
Schumer, speaking at a press conference in New York, said Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) should schedule a hearing with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and USPS board of governors Chairman Robert Duncan.
If DeJoy refuses to testify, Schumer added that he should be removed from his job.
“I am demanding Chairman Johnson convene a hearing in his committee with the postmaster general and the chairman of the Postal Service board of governors as soon as possible for them to answer serious questions and be held accountable for the damage they have caused at one of America’s most important and sacred public institutions. And if the postmaster general refuses to come before Congress, he should be swiftly removed by the board of governors,” Schumer said….
image…NYPost