Every year, members of Congress receive thousands of pieces of mail. But I am among the few who have ever delivered it.
I worked my way through college and graduate school delivering mail, often working overtime as changes in mail volume necessitated. Decades later, I still recall my route in Sharon, the many houses along the way, and the families who relied on me. Working for the US Postal Service gave me the foundation for all that came after.
Postal workers are dedicated public servants, and the Postal Service has always delivered — through snow and rain and heat and gloom of night as the unofficial motto says. But now the Postal Service faces a threat, namely a hostile president desperately hoping to slow down mail-in voting to improve his reelection prospects. You don’t have to take my word for it, take Trump’s: In an interview with Fox News last week, he admitted to denying the Postal Service necessary operating funds to slow processing mail-in votes for the November election.
To hear falsehoods about the Postal Service and President Trump’s blatant attempt to shutter its ability to deliver mail is unfathomable. The fact that it’s occurring before what is expected to be the largest mail-in election in US history should enrage everyone. What Trump is doing is denying citizens their right to vote. And he is threatening thousands of jobs and the livelihoods of many families.
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I think of my grandmother sitting at home, relying on the letter carrier to bring word from her sons serving in the European and Pacific theaters. What if President Franklin D. Roosevelt had decided it would be better for his election prospects if those letters detailing the horrors of war never showed up? Thankfully he didn’t.
What if President Lyndon Johnson saw an electoral opportunity in preventing soldiers in Vietnam from reporting home about their experiences? Thankfully he didn’t.
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We don’t have answers to those questions because no president, wartime or not, has ever launched an attack on the Postal Service, a public service outlined in Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution. Congress finds itself in uncharted waters. It will hold oversight hearings and demand answers, but with the election just over two months away, some of the damage may already have been done.
Many people may find it hard to imagine the devastating impact Trump’s attack’s on the Postal Service could have in the age of the Internet, but there is a reason why, overall, Americans view the post office favorably. There are few other government positions that create a sense of personal relationship like that of the letter carrier.
Letter carriers are valued members of our community who make personal contact with the people on their route. I remember delivering mail to elderly people who were in frail health, and I would regularly check in on them. Letter carriers do more than just deliver VA prescriptions to veterans, checks to small businesses, and birthday cards to grandchildren. They deliver a connection to the outside world for our housebound neighbors, to rural America, and to those who don’t have access to public transportation.
The president is attacking the Postal Service to influence the result of our election, plain and simple. But beyond delayed mail in the wake of the president’s self-serving efforts is a tarnished reputation of this vital national public service and the millions of Americans who work for it. The president has already taken steps to privatize the Postal Service, but as someone who has worked there, I can tell you it would be disastrous, leading to higher prices and longer waits.
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Congress has a responsibility to take action, and it will. Members of the US House will travel to Washington Saturday to pass the Delivering for America legislation, which provides emergency funds for the Postal Service and reverses any changes made to its operations since Jan. 1. We’ll continue to fight to make sure it doesn’t languish in the Senate the same way as the Heroes Act, which provided federal funds to ensure the Postal Service is able to handle the influx of mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic. And while Postmaster General Louis Dejoy — who is mired in conflicts of interest and should resign the job for which he was never qualified to have in the first place — has announced that any more changes to the Postal Service will be halted before the election, his announcement spoke nothing to the changes that have already taken place and will inevitably impact mail service across the country.
The American people have a responsibility to act as well. They should check with their town or city clerk to determine the voting requirements in their community, and they should make every effort to vote. Take it from a former letter carrier: make sure your voice is heard.
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Bill Keating is a US representative from Massachusetts’ Ninth District.