US Postal Service suspending cuts — but will it help Californians?
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said Tuesday he plans to suspend cost-cutting changes to the U.S. Postal Service, but Californians experiencing mail delays and Democrats in Congress say they remain worried about the system’s preparedness for November’s election.
Despite the announcement, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the Postal Services cutbacks, calling them a “de facto attack on a free and fair election.”
And, California Democrats said they’d continue to press for more Postal Service funding when the House of Representatives meets in a special session next week.
“Now, I know the postmaster general said a few feeble words today. But these actions I’ve described have already threatened the essential, reliable service of the postal service,” said Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento. “It’s designed to slowly squeeze the funding and efficiency of the post service and its workers. This is totally unacceptable.”
DeJoy had been overseeing a number of cost-cutting measures across the postal service over the past several months that he has said were intended to preserve the long-term success of the Postal Service. It has lost $69 billion in about a decade, according to the Government Accountability Office, and it is projected to run out of money in 2021.
The cutbacks reportedly included severe restrictions on overtime, removal of mail boxes and shutting down mail sorting machines.
The changes alarmed people who depend on timely mail for their health and businesses, as well as election officials who are preparing to handle a surge of mail-in ballots this fall because of the coronavirus outbreak.
DeJoy said Tuesday that the reforms he was pushing would “commence after the election,” so the Postal Service could “avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail.”
The House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, has called members to come back from an August recess to vote on a bill that would give $25 billion to the system to help with debts and would restore policies back to those in place in January 2020.
“Not good enough. The postmaster has promised to stop digging this hole – sure that’s a start – but really we need to fix the damage he’s already done,” said Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, who is planning to return to Congress this week for the vote.
It’s unclear if the bill has a chance at passing the Senate, although some Republicans have expressed support for giving more funding to the Postal Service.
Californians have begun to notice delays in mail.
Jeanette Rosenthal, 77, of Modesto has asthma and has to take two medications for it regularly. Typically, a type of inhaler she orders only takes three to five days to reach her home.
But when she ordered the inhaler on July 23, she didn’t receive it until Aug. 13. When she called about her order and received a tracking order, she saw it hadn’t even been picked up until July 29.
That was too long for her to go without medication, so she called her local Walgreens. Luckily, they set her up with her medication right away.
“What would happen if you have a person unable to get their medication from the pharmacy?” she asked during an interview with McClatchy. “So this is really horrible. This is very frightening on multiple levels.”
Matsui, who held a press conference Tuesday in a South Land Park shopping center, said mail had already slowed down in the area.
“We’ve been hearing the chatter that the mail hasn’t been delivered. It’s taking three, four, five, even a week or a couple weeks,” said Joe Flores of the South Land Park Neighborhood Association, who joined Matsui at her event. “And the products that these retail businesses are providing, it’s their livelihood. They’re already operating on razor thin margins and now this? It’s just not acceptable.”
Brian Voigt, a legislative liaison for the union that represents mail carriers, said Californians likely are experiencing delays because of cutbacks on overtime and the shutdown of some sorting machines. The West Sacramento Postal Distribution Center is among the sites that saw cuts.
“Everyone had their routes adjusted to the machines, now that the machines have been shut down and there’s no overtime, there’s a cutoff time in the morning where they’re told they have to go out and deliver,” Voigt said. “If they don’t get to it in time, then it’s just going to sit at the plant.”
DeJoy on Tuesday did not address the reported shutdown of some automated mail sorting machines. But he made guarantees about other policies leading up to Election Day, promising USPS could handle all election mail in November.
“I want to assure all Americans of the following:
Retail hours at Post Offices will not change.
Mail processing equipment and blue collection boxes will remain where they are.
No mail processing facilities will be closed.
And we reassert that overtime has, and will continue to be, approved as needed.”
According to a UC Berkeley poll conducted July 21 to July 27, 84 percent of Californians said they trusted the USPS to deliver their ballot safely and on time to be counted. But the poll was conducted prior to the widespread reporting on a slowdown in mail delivery under DeJoy.
Rosenthal said she’s no longer sure if she trusts USPS with her ballot.
“I have great fear that my vote won’t count, at this point I think a few of us will get together to go in person to make sure we’re counted,” Rosenthal said. “I’m not sure if I can trust the mail right now.”
