STRF/STAR MAX/IPx 2020
First100-012621
Postal Service delivery times actually went down after the election.
It’s January 26, 2021 and welcome to First 100. You can sign up to have First 100 delivered to your email by clicking here.
First 100 logo
The Chief
“Title 39, Section 202A,” Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) said to me, unprompted. He was referring to a part of the United States Code regarding the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, the 11 members who operate as kind of a board of directors for one of the nation’s largest employers. The brief section Pascrell wanted me to pay attention to reads as follows: “The Governors shall represent the public interest generally.” It is their “top responsibility,” Pascrell told me. “It says it right in there.”
Those governors can be fired by the president, but only for cause. Pascrell believes there’s a good cause: destroying the Postal Service. And yesterday he sent a letter to President Biden, asking him to fire the board. (Fortunately he sent it electronically, so the letter arrived on time.)
Nine of the eleven board members are appointed by the president; the other two are the Postmaster General (currently, the dishonorable Louis DeJoy) and their deputy. Members of the Board of Governors hire the Postmaster General; a new board could fire the Postmaster General, and reverse the corporate management actions that have degraded the institution significantly over DeJoy’s tenure.
But the governors are culpable as well, Pascrell believes. They hired DeJoy, and they stood idly by as he instituted his strategy, which not only weakened the Postal Service but rather explicitly tried to sabotage it during a presidential election that was going to be predicated on mail-in voting. “The board members’ refusal to oppose the worst destruction ever inflicted on the Postal Service was a betrayal of their duties and unquestionably constitutes good cause for their removal,” Pascrell wrote.
Read all of our First 100 Reports
Then-president Trump, said in August of last year that, if he opposed additional funding for the Postal Service in a pandemic relief bill, “that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.” There was a fairly obvious shift in strategy regarding how the mail would be carried, initiated by DeJoy, a large Trump donor. The evidence is somewhat circumstantial but the results were clear: the mail was slowing down, right in time for the election.
Judges stepped in and mitigated some of this damage for mail-in ballots and the election. But the problem grew worse after the election, during the holiday season. By late December, only 64 percent of first-class mail was being delivered on time. “I send out 4,000 Christmas cards every year,” Pascrell told me. “We pay for that ourselves. My cards were delivered to the post office in Virginia on December 1. Most of the people in New Jersey got their card in January.”
Pascrell has been a longtime supporter of the Postal Service. He’s written at length about its central importance in our commercial and social lives, and how it can thrive again. In August he sought indictments in New Jersey against DeJoy and Trump for election subversion. He has spoken eloquently about the residual damage of the Postal Service’s decay: Small businesses wrecked by uncertain delivery times, seniors seeing their medications delayed. He has made recommendations, including changes to how the Postal Service budgets for 75 years of pre-funded retirement benefits, in proposed legislation.
This latest recommendation falls squarely within the law: the president can absolutely fire Postal Service board members for cause. “Doing nothing while the post office is dismantled is cause,” Pascrell said. A new board could fire DeJoy, and start fresh. The Senate can confirm new board members by a majority vote, and Democrats are united on the Postal Service. (If you wanted to do this faster, you could leave one Governor behind—former Obama manufacturing czar Rom Bloom, perhaps—to fire DeJoy.)
The issue actually got a mention at the White House press briefing yesterday. “It’s an interesting question,” said press secretary Jen Psaki. “We all love the mailman and mailwoman.”
Pascrell told me that his office has been in touch with the White House about the issue. “They’re looking at the history of it,” he said. “It wasn’t exactly on the top of their agenda.” While he acknowledged the full plate for the president, he cast his request as critical for accountability. After all, when you’re talking about deliberate sabotage of the tools to run an election, Pascrell said, “if that’s not sedition then what the hell is?”
In his letter, Pascrell framed the issue as a matter of public trust. Many people have no greater interaction with the government on a daily basis than with the post office. (If Biden thinks there’s a rural crisis, for example, fixing the post office, a signature institution of rural America, should be a top priority.) It has served as an economic and social engine since before there was a Constitution. Biden has talked about building back better and making a tangible difference in people’s lives. Restoring the post office would be one of the most high-profile ways to do that. And exacting accountability for the sins of the past would push in that direction.
“I mean what I say,” Pascrell assured me. “Nobody’s going to shut me up about it.”
Lightning Round
A lot of things mentioned in yesterday’s First 100 got cleared up, so let’s whip through them:
The Senate: Mitch McConnell backed down on his demand that the Senate’s organizing resolution include language on keeping the filibuster intact. He tried to play it off that he got public “assurances” on the filibuster from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and that was enough. But they were already on record against changes, and will be until enough Republican obstruction changes their mind. The point is that McConnell wanted it in writing in the organizing resolution, and Chuck Schumer wouldn’t give it to him. And so McConnell caved.
The vaccine: President Biden, who had stuck with his 1 million/day pace for vaccinations, yesterday upped it after press questioning to 1.5 million/day. Good news that the goal is being set more in line with the actual need and the reality of how shots have been progressing (another 1.2 million yesterday.)
The relief bill: Schumer is moving toward budget reconciliation for more pandemic relief, rather than waiting around for non-existent bipartisanship. Reconciliation, of course, is a protracted process, and I’ve been advocating that you get a chunk of relief through regular order, with two things that can pass the Senate—checks and shots. Biden appeared to shut that down yesterday. “I’m reluctant to cherry pick and take out one or two items,” he told reporters. “They go, sort of, hand in glove, each of these issues.”
If that’s his prerogative and it just means one big reconciliation bill, it’s a missed opportunity to deliver relief quickly, as was promised. But if Biden’s open to the Senate nickel and diming the bill, particularly Senators who are highly unlikely to vote for the finished product, that’s a huge mistake. The bill is popular. Make Republicans vote against it, and then get all you can by whatever process available. Negotiating with yourself makes no sense.
What Day of Biden’s Presidency Is It?
Day 7. We’re still in Biden’s self-imposed 10-day window of executive actions; today’s will focus on racial equity. He will also “deliver remarks on the fight to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Today I Learned
- A good thread on what’s going on with yesterday’s Buy American order from Todd Tucker. (Twitter)
- Meet the Ricchetti brothers—one a lobbyist-turned-Biden-aide, the other still a lobbyist getting a ton of new clients because, well, his brother’s a Biden aide. (Wall Street Journal)
- States are easing COVID restrictions just as the new variant emerges. Forget Congressional Republicans, this is the biggest Biden sabotage. (Bloomberg)
- Biden will reopen the Obamacare marketplaces for enrollment and possibly undo the Medicaid work requirement option. (Seattle Times)
- He’s also moving toward a ban on new oil and gas leases on federal land. (New York Times)
- With 20 percent of renters behind on payments, and not enough rental assistance in the pipeline, cancellation needs to be on the table. (CNBC)
- Relatedly, a new paper shows that reducing evictions and utility shut-offs in the pandemic saved thousands of lives. (NBER)
- An under-the-radar Biden fight will be hospital price transparency. (Washington Post)
