The House passed a $25 billion bailout of the financially troubled United States Postal Service that would block reforms or changes to service.
About two dozen Republicans voted in favor of the legislation despite both the GOP leadership and President Trump urging party lawmakers to oppose it. Dozens voted by proxy rather than attending the unusual August Saturday session in person.
Republicans called the measure “political theater” and argued that the USPS has suffered from chronic financial problems for many years and is in need of reform, not more money.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was on Capitol Hill Saturday trying to convince Democrats to work on a compromise deal that would include not only some money for the USPS, but other elements of a larger coronavirus aid package.
He suggested the Democrat-authored measure could serve as a launching point to a larger deal.
Meadows noted he co-authored a bipartisan postal reform bill while serving in the House that never made it into law.
“This bill on the floor today is more of a partisan bill than it is a real attempt at solving the problem, but hopefully, it’s an attempt to start solving the problem,” Meadows said.
Ahead of the vote, Democrats released internal USPS documents showing a drop-in service that appears to coincide with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s takeover in June.
President Trump appointed DeJoy, a businessman and prominent GOP donor, to reform the financially troubled USPS, which is on track to lose $9 billion this year and has lost nearly $70 billion over the past 11 years.
“The new postmaster general is using the lack of funding to justify sweeping and damaging changes to Postal Service operations, and we have seen the results,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, said.
Democrats blamed Trump for trying to hobble the USPS, which they said is tied to his effort to manipulate the Nov. 3 election. Trump said he is opposed to universal mail-in voting because it is vulnerable to fraud and other problems.
Trump said earlier in August if he refuses to provide additional funding for the USPS, mail-in balloting cannot be carried out.
“He admitted on national television he was blocking the $25 billion in order to hobble mail-in voting,” Maloney said. “That’s what he said.”
Republicans dismissed Democratic arguments in favor of the money.
Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, called the claims from Democrats “conspiracies, insinuations, and fabrications.”
Republicans said the Postal Service is suffering from the same problems with on-time deliveries that have long plagued it. Comer pointed out USPS has removed 35,000 mailboxes over the past 10 years, including 14,000 removed during former President Barack Obama’s time in office.
“Where was the outrage then? There was none,” Rep. Bob Gibbs, a Republican from Ohio.
DeJoy testified on Friday before a GOP-led Senate oversight panel that he has not cut overtime or implemented any changes aimed at slowing down service. DeJoy said he was implementing a long-planned realignment of USPS services and put in place changes that were supposed to increase lagging on-time mail delivery.
Rep. Jody Hice, a Republican from Georgia, said universal mail-in balloting will lead to fraud and major problems that could make it impossible to determine the results of the Nov. 3 election.
Maloney’s own primary results were delayed for weeks due to mail-in balloting problems, and her Democratic opponent, Suraj Patel, who was determined to be the loser, is suing to contest the results. Patel has not conceded, even though Maloney was declared the winner. Thousands of ballots in the race were rejected because they were missing a postmark or were postmarked late.
“The chairwoman herself ought to be the first to stand up and testify of the disaster of her own election,” Hice said, referring to Maloney. “It took over six weeks or thereabouts to get the results, because these mail-in ballots kept coming and coming and coming, thousands of which were thrown out, opening the doors for lawsuits in your own election. It’s just absolute insanity what we’re doing here.”
Republicans argued the USPS has long needed reform, but Congress has been unable to pass legislation to put it on a financially sustainable path.
Democrats this summer rejected a White House offer of a $10 billion compromise and said that the $25 billion is backed by USPS’s board of governors, which consists of Trump appointees.
Pelosi argued on Saturday that financial sustainability should not be a priority because so many people depend on the USPS for the delivery of medicine and other critical mail.
“While we always want to check every federal dollar to the scrutiny of what we’re getting for it, let us remember that it is a service,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi pointed to polls showing 90% support for the USPS, which was first established as a postal system in 1775.
“Since that time, it has been as American as apple pie, motherhood, baseball, you name it,” Pelosi said.
