House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the House to return to session this week for a vote on a bill to prevent the Trump administration from implementing changes to the U.S. Postal Service.
Aug.16 (UPI) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the House to return to session this week for a vote on a bill to prevent the Trump administration from implementing changes to the U. S. Postal Service, accusing the president of attempting to sabotage November’s general election by manipulating the delivery of the country’s mail. In a letter to her Democratic colleagues on Sunday evening, the California Democrat called for them to return to the House to oppose moves made to the USPS by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee, who she accused of pushing through « sweeping new operational changes that degrade postal service, delay the mail and… threaten to deny the ability of eligible Americans to cast their votes through the mail in the upcoming elections in a timely fashion. » The letter was issued after Thomas Marshall, general counsel and executive vice president for the USPS, sent letters to 46 states and Washington, D. C., warning that some mail-in ballots might not be counted in time for the November election. Internal documents obtained by news outlets including NBC News showed that DeJoy had ordered the decommissioning of 671 letter sorting machines. Pelosi said delays caused by these alterations threaten not only the election but the health and economic security of Americans by delaying the delivery of medicines and payments amid the coronavirus pandemic, stating that 1.2 billion people receive prescriptions through the mail. The date of the vote on the Delivering for America Act would be announced later, Pelosi said. Introduced on Tuesday by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N. Y., chairwoman of the oversight and reform committee, the bill aims to bar the Postal Service from implementing any changes to the operation or level of service it had in place as of Jan.
