Biden Urged To Oust DeJoy And Entire Postal Service Board

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

Even though the 2020 election wasn't ruined by sabotage and we now have President Joe Biden, we still have a deeply broke and highly politicized U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Among all the other housecleaning Biden has to do, New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell isn't going to let him forget about it. The Democrat has written to Biden, urging him to "fire the entire Postal Board of Governors for their silence and complicity in trump and dejoy's [sic] attempts to subvert the election and destroy the Post Office."

"Through the devastating arson of the Trump regime, the USPS Board of Governors sat silent," Pascrell argued in his letter. The Republican board of governors, the creation of Trump and Mitch McConnell, has to go, Pascrell argues, for their "refusal to oppose the worst destruction ever inflicted on the Postal Service" while Postmaster General Louise DeJoy was imposing his changes to cause mail delays and sabotage the service. "The continued challenges in preserving our Postal Service to survive and endure are gargantuan, and so demand bold solutions to meet them," Pascrell wrote. "To begin that work, we must have a governing body that can be trusted to represent the public interest."

Biden can fire them all for cause. Pascrell writes that the "board members' refusal to oppose the worst destruction ever inflicted on the Postal Service was a betrayal of their duties and unquestionably constitutes good cause for their removal." It's a valid argument, even though their firing would probably end up in court. It would be worth it for Biden to do it and appoint an entirely new board, saving the agency while the lawsuits played out. As of now, the board has just five members, all Trump's, and all Republican. The board should comprise nine members, and the American Postal Workers Union has called for Biden to "quickly fill" the spots to "fight for the Postal Service we all deserve."

If Biden fired the whole lot, he would then have all nine slots to fill, though four of them would have to go to Republicans. Even now, he could probably find four never-Trumpers who love the institution of the USPS as much as the rest of us. Then they could fire DeJoy, and they could get back to saving the still deeply stressed and broken institution.