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Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee are moving ahead on their latest package of postal reform legislation and picking up bipartisan support in the process.
The committee will markup the 2021 Postal Service Reform Act in a meeting this Thursday. Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) previewed her bill as a “discussion draft” at a hearing in February, and got Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s feedback on some of its key points.
Maloney, along with Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.), introduced the final text of the bill Tuesday afternoon, ahead of Thursday’s markup meeting.
The bill is also co-sponsored by Government Operations Chairman Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and committee member Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-Va.).
On May 13, 2021, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved two separate but related bills addressing USPS finances and operations. The first, the bipartisan Postal Service Reform Act of 2021 (H.R. 3076 (PDF)), was approved by voice vote, making it now eligible for a floor vote in the US House of Representatives. The bill was introduced two days prior to committee consideration following a painstaking effort to craft a bipartisan document. Lead sponsors were Committee Chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Ranking Member Rep. James Comer (R-KY) along with original co-sponsors Government Operations Subcommittee Chair Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and Ranking Member Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC). The bill was approved by the committee without amendment or any audible dissension, and included bipartisan agreed upon elements such as: codifying six-day delivery, requiring postal employees to enroll in Medicare at eligibility age, and elimination of the requirement that USPS pre-
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Lawmakers introduce bipartisan measure postal leadership has deemed essential for righting the ship at USPS.
Senior Correspondent
The top Republican on the House committee with jurisdiction over the U.S. Postal Service threw his support behind a new bill to overhaul the mailing agency, giving lawmakers an easier path to finally delivering on long-sought-after reform.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, joined Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the panel’s chairwoman, in introducing the 2021 Postal Reform Act, which is a modified version of a draft measure put forward by only Democrats in February. The bill includes previously bipartisan provisions to shift more postal retirees to Medicare for their health care and require most postal workers to select postal-specific health care plans. The measure, like
For Democrats starving for a villain in post-Trump Washington, Louis DeJoy seemed like an ideal candidate for the role. As postmaster general, he’s the most powerful holdover from the previous administration a Trump campaign donor and logistics executive hired to run the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service. When DeJoy moved last summer to slow the mail, his critics charged that he was carrying out a Trump plot to help steal the presidential election and degrade a beloved American institution.
DeJoy’s critics, however, were fretting about the wrong crisis. The Postal Service handled the deluge of ballots but not the crush of Christmas cards and packages that followed. The holiday season was a disaster for the agency, prompting many Democrats to renew their calls for his ouster. Yet as the fight turns to the future of the Postal Service, the party is divided over the leader it loves to hate, and some lawmakers are realizing that DeJoy’s vision is not radically different from t
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