Democrats and their allies in the media would have us believe there is a dastardly plot within the U.S. Postal Service to rig the election in favor of President Trump. In reality, this is a shameless attempt by Democratic politicians to establish an excuse should they lose the 2020 election and to gain a short-term victory for an important union constituency.
According to the conspiracy’s pushers, President Trump is leaning on the post office to slow down mail delivery while congressional Republicans are simultaneously opposing a $25 billion postal bailout so they can bankrupt the post office prior to the election.
On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi alleged that Trump is waging a “campaign to sabotage the election by manipulating the Postal Service to disenfranchise voters.” On Monday, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the Democratic Caucus, penned a letter to the FBI demanding a criminal investigation of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. On Tuesday, 20 Democratic attorneys general announced their plan to sue the Postal Service over alleged election interference, while Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh defended the action by claiming post office was launching “a straight-up attack on democracy.”
The baselessness of such accusations is apparent to anyone paying attention to postal issues before this week.
“This conspiracy theory is the most far-flung thing I think I’ve ever heard,” Stephen Kearney, who worked for 33 years at the Postal Service, including as a treasurer and a senior vice president, told the Wall Street Journal. Ruth Goldway, a Democrat and former chairwoman and commissioner of the U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission, penned an op-ed in the New York Times stating, “As a result of a huge increase in packages being sent through the system and a credit line through the CARES Act, [USPS] has access to about $25 billion in cash. Its own forecasts predict that it will have enough money to operate into 2021.”
As these former postal officials rightly contend, the idea that the Postal Service is unable to handle the increased volume of election mail is without evidence and counterintuitive. According to its own annual report, the post office delivered an average of 2.8 billion pieces of mail per week in 2019. Even if every single one of the 209 million registered voters eligible to vote by mail chose to do so, the post office could handle it. There is no need for additional funding to handle election mail.
Democrats acknowledged as much by including a $25 billion postal bailout in the HEROES Act passed by House Democrats in May, which contains zero language about helping the Postal Service handle the upcoming election.
In fact, the main argument coming from the political Left prior to this moment was that the Postal Service was worthy of coronavirus-specific relief funding precisely because of plunging letter mail volume caused by lockdown measures. Others, in contrast, argue that a sharp increase in package volume is compensating financially for lower mail volume during the pandemic and that the Left is merely leveraging the crisis to address long-standing issues at the post office. This was the crux of the debate prior to this week.
Regardless of the lockdown’s impact on current Postal Service financials, it is incoherent and pure partisan gamesmanship for Democrats to argue that the post office requires a bailout because of a drop in mail volume while simultaneously claiming that the service lacks the capacity to handle an increase from election mail. Either the post office needs additional funding because there isn’t enough mail to operate profitably or because it cannot handle an increase in mail volume during the election. Both cannot be true.
But the false narrative has already had its intended effect. Liberal media outlets dutifully backed Democrats’ attacks, with the Washington Post running the headline “Trump’s attacks on the Postal Service deserve sustained, red-alert coverage from the media.”
On Tuesday, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced a host of concessions meant to “avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail.” These concessions include a halt to “long-standing operational initiatives” such as preventing the closure of any mail processing center until after the election and reinstating overtime pay for postal workers. These are wins for the letter carriers union and a loss for advocates of postal reform.
Unfortunately, such concessions will likely not stop Democrats from continuing to push the conspiracy. Thankfully, Republican House leadership announced on Wednesday that they will whip against the Democrats’ post office bill. Good. Republicans should zero in on correcting the record and hammering Democrats for overplaying their hand.
Mike Palicz is the Federal Affairs Manager at Americans for Tax Reform.
