The Continued Survival of Louis DeJoy

Failure to nominate replacements for the Postal Service Board of Governors could give the postmaster general another year of job security.

by

By retaining their Senate majority, Democrats no longer feel the urgency to use the lame-duck session to confirm executive branch appointments, pushing off decisions on who will fill key positions until at least next year. That means that the Biden administration will likely go through 2023—as they have through 2021 and 2022—with Louis DeJoy as postmaster general, given the current makeup of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Board of Governors, the body that decides whether to fire the PMG and choose a successor. Currently, the board supports DeJoy, and if the members whose terms expire in December are allowed to stay on the board an extra year, that support will continue.

The terms of Democrat Lee Moak and Republican William Zollars both expire on December 8th of this year. But both can receive a “holdover year,” where they can fulfill the duties of a postal governor before leaving the board. With no nominees currently in place to replace Moak and Zollars, that scenario is likely, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. In fact, on the USPS website, Moak and Zollars are listed as currently in their holdover years, even though that technically isn’t true until December 8th.

As the Prospect wrote in August, Moak and Zollars have both expressed public support for DeJoy. Both can be replaced by Democrats, even though the party of the president can hold no more than five of the nine board seats. Because one of the board members, Amber McReynolds, is an independent, President Biden can replace the Republican Zollars with a Democrat. That would ensure enough votes to fire DeJoy, even if McReynolds or one of the current Democrats opposed it.

More from David Dayen

In October, the Save the Post Office Coalition, representing 300 labor and public-interest groups, endorsed two Democrats for the positions, one of them Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-MI), the Flint congresswomen who is retiring this term. Lawrence served for 30 years as a postal worker and eventually an executive in human resources with the USPS prior to winning election to Congress.

Lawrence is not the only member of Congress angling for a board position. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the House Oversight Committee chair who lost her seat in a redistricted Dem-on-Dem battle with Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) this year, has also expressed interest in the board, seeking endorsements from postal unions.

Maloney, who co-authored the bipartisan postal reform legislation that passed Congress earlier this year, has more experience in Congress than Lawrence, but Lawrence has the edge in understanding the inner workings of the USPS. Lawrence also chairs House Oversight’s Subcommittee on Government Operations, which has specific oversight responsibilities over the USPS. The National Association of Postal Supervisors has endorsed Lawrence.

“The combination of workforce experience and playing a watchdog role on the committee makes her damn near perfect,” said Porter McConnell, co-founder of the Save the Post Office Coalition. The coalition also endorsed Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. McConnell had no comment on Maloney.

The Save the Post Office Coalition, representing 300 labor and public-interest groups, has endorsed two Democrats for board positions.

The jockeying for position between Lawrence and Maloney is a typical post-election situation, with members who are either retiring or lost their seats looking for their next gig. The Biden administration has not moved rapidly to find seats for retiring or losing members, however. And talk about any appointments cooled after Democrats kept the Senate, particularly for agencies like the USPS, which can already function with board members just carrying over their terms for another year.

McConnell thinks that would be a mistake. “It’s not like DeJoy isn’t doing active damage, things that are hard to reverse,” she said, mentioning that the Postal Service has recently announced increased stamp prices, in addition to the steps in DeJoy’s ten-year plan unveiled last year that would cut services, reduce office hours, and lay off workers.

In addition, decisions on upgrades to the postal fleet will be made next year. While DeJoy bowed to pressure and announced an increase in the purchase of electric vehicles, from 20 percent of the initial purchase order to 50 percent, that is still only the initial order, and future orders will have to be decided. “This year is big for that,” McConnell said. “I understand everything is high-stakes and there’s a list. But it’s not a normal year in postal land.”

A failure to change the dynamic on the board would give DeJoy job security for another year. But the worst-case scenario would be for the Biden administration to renominate Moak to another seven-year term. His reappointment has been endorsed by the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), one of the largest postal unions with 300,000 active and retired members, in an October 28 letter. Moak has labor ties as the former president of the Air Line Pilots Association, but prior to his service on the board had no postal experience.

“Governor Moak has helped the Postal Service weather one of the most turbulent periods in history,” NALC president Fredric Rolando wrote in a letter to President Biden. “Moak has been and continues to be a strong advocate for the postal service, the postal employees, and the public interest.”

Rolando’s letter fails to mention Moak’s public support for DeJoy. The NALC endorsed the previous chair of the Board of Governors, Ron Bloom, who also expressed public support for DeJoy. Privately, the NALC tried to stop members of Congress from advocating for the removal of members of the USPS Board of Governors.

DeJoy’s critics have also raised questions about Moak—in particular, about his ownership of a public affairs consulting firm, the Moak Group, which former Trump deputy counsel Stefan Passantino worked for. Passantino provided “legal services” for the organization and earned in excess of $5,000, according to his ethics disclosure. Passantino also worked for a law firm that represented witnesses before the January 6th Committee.

The Save the Post Office Coalition has rejected the notion of a Moak reappointment to the board. “Unanswered questions around the nature of Moak’s connection to Passantino are concerning in their own right,” the coalition wrote. “When taken in conjunction with Moak’s tacit support for DeJoy’s tumultuous leadership, and own admittance to a lack of postal experience—why wouldn’t the Biden Administration and Senate committee leadership instead take their pick from experienced and committed experts ready and willing to serve the best interests of the postal workforce and the nation starting on day one?”

The NALC has called the attacks on Moak “well-meaning but grossly misinformed.”

A second Trump administration will cement a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court for a generation, and put our collective future in the hands of someone who will be virtually unchecked by our institutions. The country has shifted rightward, and the reverberations will ensue for potentially the next few decades. In this climate, a robust independent media ecosystem will be more important than ever. We're committed to bringing you the latest news on how Trump's agenda will actually affect the American people, shining a light on the stories corporate media overlooks and keeping the public informed about how power really works in this country.

Quality journalism is expensive to produce, and we don't have corporate backers to rely on to fund what we do. Everything we do is thanks to our incredible community of readers, who chip in a few dollars at a time to make our work possible. Any amount you give today will help us continue reporting on what matters to our democracy.

You can help power this newsroom by making a one-time donation or by becoming a member today.