Democrats have already begun discussions on major legislation — and forcing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy from office.
The nation’s mail service is slower and more erratic than it’s been in generations, via the confluence of an abrupt reorganization and pandemic-era anomalies that has fueled demands for reform and fundamentally different ideas on how to achieve it.
On one side is Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who, with the backing of the U.S. Postal Service’s governing board, is expected as soon as next week to outline a new vision for the agency, one that includes more service cuts, higher and region-specific pricing, and lower delivery expectations .
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Hey, leave him in long enough and it will cost $5.00 to mail a letter across town that never arrives at its destination.
I could be wrong about this, but if the Democrats can fill all of the vacancies in the board of governors, they can get a majority in the USPS board of governors and force him out, correct?
It takes a bit more than that. They also have to fill the open position with people who support DeJoy’s ouster, and also convince the Democrats currently on the board to accept his ouster as well. I’m honestly not sure whether or not that is a done deal. All of the governors currently on the board (including the Democrats) were appointed by Trump. Its also possible, given the disaster of DeJoy’s tenure whether some of the Republican board might be convinced to drop him.
Basically I’m not sure what Republican and Democrat really means when it comes to the board member’s allegiance.
That’s untrue. Many government officials can’t be fired (judges, elected officials, etc.) but that’s what impeachment is for. The Postmaster General can be impeached and removed from his position, theoretically.
The Postmaster General is not an impeachable position, so impeachment is not an option in theory or in reality. As the USPS is currently constituted, the Postmaster General is more of the CEO of the company, though the USPS is not precisely a corporation in that sense.
The Board of Governors of the USPS does have the power to remove him, but seeing as they are the ones who put him in that position and the fact that most of them were Trump appointees, this appears unlikely for the moment.
There are several vacancies on the board and a couple more on the way. Enough, that if all the declared Dems plus filled vacancies all voted to remove DeJoy, he’d be out on his ass. More than a few Dems have been calling exactly for this to occur. The timing is less than ideal, however, as the process to fill sufficient seats would take the better part of this year. Those board seats require Senate confirmation, so the Dems winning the Senate was critical as well. Also, the Dems currently on the board voted to install DeJoy, so this isn’t exactly a foolproof plan.
Do you have a cite for that? The Constitution states that any “civil officer” can be impeached. I don’t believe that there has ever been a ruling about whether the Postmaster General could be deemed impeachable. So what are you basing this on?
I don’t have a cite, but it’s also incredibly unlikely to come up.
The concept of which positions constitute “civil officers” is not defined. You’d think this should include, for example, sitting members of Congress. But the current understanding is that they aren’t ‘civil officers’ in the meaning of the Constitution (only one member of Congress has ever been impeached, which was in the 18th century and the Senate subsequently declared members of Congress weren’t civil officers in that sense and the impeachment invalid). Also, once you go low enough down the chain, impeachment has never been used. It’s been used for federal judges, Presidents, and in only one case a Cabinet secretary.
So, I may have overstated. It may be possible for the Postmaster General to be impeached, but it’s not all that clear cut, and it is extremely unlikely that the House would do this if there are any other viable alternatives.
Certainly the President can’t just fire the Postmaster General. That is for absolute certain.
It’s a real fucking shame because the postal service has been an incredibly successful example of a type of service that can be provided as a public service both efficiently and relatively cheaply yet something the private sector cannot provide at either the same cost or quality.
It’s not like anybody is claiming everything is better when government runs it, but mail service has long been one of those things, and it’s not open to legitimate debate. I know there are some who believe this is the intersection of two fundamental contradictory things, and yet the bumblebee flies (and yes, I know the source of that meme is also wrong). It is perhaps hoping beyond reason that human beings can somehow actually come to figure out that sometimes choosing the greater good over the individual profit motive can somehow be more profitable overall and yet more efficient, but the alternative is accepting we’re ultimately doomed.
That CNN story is more than a little disingenuous. They love their “Dems in disarray” stories and clearly want this to be one----but they name only ONE Democrat who’s not in favor of ousting DeJoy as quickly as possible:
Again, that is literally the ONE Democrat named in the story as being kinda sorta willing to let DeJoy stay. Every other Democrat named wants him out asap.
So “at odds” is stretching it.
(Manu Raju, co-author of this misleading story: I’m looking at you, you with your apparent ambitions to be courted by Fox News as a means of gaining promotions and raises at CNN…)