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- Democrats on Friday called for President Biden to replace the USPS board of governors.
- “We can start fixing the Post Office by firing the leadership,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr.
- Postmaster general Louis DeJoy was sued by the NAACP in August.
- Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.
Members of Congress on Friday called for President Joe Biden to replace every member of the US Postal Service’s board of governors, saying they had enabled the Postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, in his “harmful” policy decisions.
“There should not be any toleration for their silence or complicity in overseeing these harmful policy changes that have also eroded the public trust in this agency,” Senator Tammy Duckworth said in a letter sent to the president.
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. said on Twitter, “Americans don’t want to hear excuses. We can start fixing the Post Office by firing the leadership.”
He added: “Louis DeJoy was appointed by Trump to slow your mail and destroy your Post Office. He’s corrupt and needs to go.”
The president has the power to appoint governors to the USPS board, which operates much like a public company’s board. The nine governors appoint the postmaster general.
The Democrats' calls for Biden to replace the governors came as DeJoy's USPS team planned new updates, which would reportedly drive up some postage rates and remove first-class mail, according to reports from The Washington Post and NBC News.
"This work is not only needed, it is long overdue," DeJoy told NBC News on Friday.
As of Saturday, there were six governors appointed to the USPS board, leaving three vacancies. The deputy postmaster position was also vacant.
At the White House on Thursday, press secretary Jen Psaki was asked if Biden planned to move quickly to fill the vacancies on the USPS board.
Psaki said: "I don't have any personnel announcements or specifics of the determinations of the - or, I should say, the factors that are playing into those decisions. But, you know, the President stands by his concerns about what happened last fall and improvements he'd like to see at the Post Office."
Both the USPS and DeJoy, a former Republican donor, were sued last fall by the NAACP and other civil rights groups.
The groups said delivery delays at the post office were an act of self-sabotage for the US mail system in "a blatant attempt to disenfranchise voters of color," many of whom planned to use mail-in ballots for the November election.
AACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said at the time: "This willful and blatant attempt to obstruct the mail system amidst a pandemic and on the precipice of a pivotal election is a direct threat to the people of this nation's right to vote in a fair and free election."
In her letter to Biden, Duckworth said it would take significant work to rebuild trust in the USPS.
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