Pelosi, Democrats Considering Bringing House Back From Recess Early To Address Mail Crisis

TOPLINE

After several Democratic officials announced this week that they would investigate the legality of President Trump’s decision to deny the U.S. Postal Service funding over mail-in voting, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic leaders are reportedly considering returning from August recess as early as next week to explore legislation addressing the crisis that has enveloped the USPS.

KEY FACTS

Critical Quote:

“The President made plain that he will manipulate the operations of the Post Office to deny eligible voters the ballot in pursuit of his own re-election,” Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement Friday. “The President’s own words confirm: he needs to cheat to win.”

Key Background:

As Election Day nears, the national debate on the potential expansion of mail-in voting in the 2020 presidential election has intensified, which has brought the problems at the USPS into greater focus. Louis DeJoy, a Republican fundraiser who has contributed more than $1.2 million to the Trump Victory Fund, was named the nation’s new postmaster general last month. DeJoy immediately announced an “operational pivot” within the Postal Service, which included eliminating overtime for hundreds of thousands of employees and mandated that late-arriving mail be left behind by carriers and delivered the next day. On Thursday, Trump, who has claimed mail-in voting will lead to voter fraud despite a lack of concrete evidence, seemingly acknowledged that he’s holding up a stimulus deal over Democratic demands for funding to USPS, saying Democrats “need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.” Trump added that such action “means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong accused Trump of attempting to hijack the election, tweeting Friday that he is “actively engaged in discussion with attorneys general across the nation to mount a vigorous defense of our postal service and the legitimacy of our election.” Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs asked the state’s Attorney General on Friday to investigate whether the recent changes to the USPS, in conjunction with Trump’s comments about Postal Service funding, violate an Arizona law that makes it a crime to “knowingly delay the delivery of a ballot.” On the same day, Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) made a criminal referral to New Jersey’s Attorney General, asking him to empanel a grand jury to investigate “subversion of election laws by Donald Trump, Louis DeJoy, and other Trump officials in their accelerating arson of the Post Office.”

Big Number:

$25 billion: That’s the amount House Democrats included for the USPS in their coronavirus bill in May, along with an additional $3.6 billion in election security funding.

Further Reading

Postal Service Warns Mail-In Ballots In 46 States May Not Be Delivered In Time (Forbes) 

Democrats Investigate Whether Trump, DeJoy Violated Laws With USPS Actions (Forbes) 

House Committee Requests Hearing With New Postmaster General To Address Mail Delays (Forbes)