Louis DeJoy tries to break the Postal Service some more before he gets fired

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will reportedly unveil a plan on Tuesday to make the U.S. Postal Service even worse than he already has. The move comes as the Senate prepares to consider three nominations by President Joe Biden to the agency’s board of governors, which may soon fire the embattled GOP megadonor.

According to the Washington Post, DeJoy will propose a 10-year plan that includes longer delivery times for first-class mail, higher prices for postage, and reduced hours of operation at local post offices. The independent agency has already seen slower delivery times since DeJoy was appointed to the position in May.

The Postal Service is overseen by a board of governors, appointed for a fixed term by the president and confirmed by the Senate. They can be removed only for cause and are the only ones with the power to hire or fire a postmaster general.

DeJoy, who was appointed by a U.S. Postal Services Board of Governors entirely nominated by Donald Trump, has thus remained on the job even as President Joe Biden has replaced most of Trump’s executive branch team.

Last month, Biden nominated two Democrats and one independent to the board. They are currently awaiting confirmation. Once confirmed, they and the two Democrats already serving could give Biden allies a working majority on the nine-member panel and could end DeJoy’s tenure.

DeJoy recently said that he would give himself an A grade for his job performance. That is not a widespread view.

In the lead-up to the 2020 election, DeJoy reduced overtime for employees and ordered the removal of sorting machines, moves many lawmakers likened to sabotage as millions of Americans tried to take advantage of voting-by-mail options due to the coronavirus pandemic.

One federal judge called the resulting slowdowns a “politically motivated attack,” and the agency’s own inspector general wrote that DeJoy’s decisions had “negatively impacted the quality and timelines of mail service nationally.”

In addition to disenfranchising thousands of voters, DeJoy’s delays harmed many Americans who rely on the Postal Service for delivery of essential items like prescription medications.

Democrats in Congress have said it is past time for DeJoy to go, while some have also called for Biden to fire the rest of the board for cause.

“Today I am calling on President Biden to fire the entire Postal Board of Governors for their silence and complicity in trump and dejoy’s attempts to subvert the election and destroy the Post Office,” tweeted Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) in January. “Trump confessed he was wrecking @USPS to rig the election. His toady Postmaster General dejoy carried out that arson. It’s time to clean house. Dejoy should be fired but also prosecuted.”

DeJoy publicly apologized on Feb. 9 for falling “far short of meeting our service targets,” but accepted no blame for his own role in those failures.

At a House hearing on Feb. 24, DeJoy stood by his plans to slow delivery even more, arguing that “the status quo should be acceptable to no one.”

When asked by Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) how long he intended to stay in the job, DeJoy defiantly answered, “A long time. Get used to me.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in February that the president “stands by his concerns about what happened last fall and improvements he’d like to see at the Post Office.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.