Press Releases

In a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy released on Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney and 192 other House Democrats including Congressman Richard E. Neal called for the reversal of policies that have worsened the crisis facing the Postal Service and exacerbated a dramatic increase in delayed and undelivered mail.

In the letter, the Members wrote, “[T]he United States Postal Service is a pillar of our American Democracy that is enshrined in the Constitution, which empowers Congress to ‘establish Post Offices and Post Roads.’  The Postal Service provides critical services for the American people: delivering medicine to seniors, paychecks to workers, tax refunds to millions and absentee ballots to voters. 

“It is always essential that the Postal Service be able to deliver mail in a timely and effective manner.  During the once-in-a-century health and economic crisis of COVID-19, the Postal Service’s smooth functioning is a matter of life-or-death, and is critical for protecting lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy.”

Congressman Neal commented on the letter saying, “I can’t emphasize enough the role that the Postal Service plays every single day as a service that we all depend on.”

In addition, Congressman Neal pointed to the Heroes Act which passed the House in May that included $25 billion in relief for the United States Postal Service and $3.6 billion in state election security grants.

“At the time of this growing health crisis, these two things go hand in hand: election security and strengthening the USPS,” Neal said.

The grants – which would include over $75 million to the state of Massachusetts alone –can be used for the “planning, preparation, and resilience of elections” including:

• early voting, vote-by-mail, and prepaid postage requirements
• hiring and recruitment of additional poll workers, PPE for poll workers, and sanitization of polling places
• election security, including cybersecurity of voter registration databases and post-election audits

The full text of the letter to Postmaster General DeJoy can be found HERE.

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