DeJoy covers his ears, but Congress is listening to NNA

Dec 18, 2024

Last week Postmaster General Louis DeJoy covered his ears in response to criticisms from members of Congress about service quality under his tenure, perhaps cementing his legacy of unresponsiveness and failure. At the same time, he was testifying, however, NNA’s leadership and public affairs team was meeting with numerous staff members in key offices to reiterate our postal concerns and priorities, and they were all ears.

Last week Postmaster General Louis DeJoy covered his ears in response to criticisms from members of Congress about service quality under his tenure, perhaps cementing his legacy of unresponsiveness and failure.  At the same time, he was testifying, however, NNA’s leadership and public affairs team was meeting with numerous staff members in key offices to reiterate our postal concerns and priorities, and they were all ears.

These included Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri), Senators Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), Senate oversight Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-Michigan) and Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia). The message reflected the concerns recently highlighted by Editor and Publisher about the series of punitive rate increases, widespread service failures and lack of responsiveness epitomized by DeJoy’s hand on ears moment. Staffers for all these offices were open to considering key pieces of legislation NNA is endorsing including the USPS SERVES US Act as well as the Deliver for Democracy Act and an in-county rate cap.

Their engagement would be aided by the introduction of a bill and the group also met with staff for Rep. Sam Graves (R-Missouri) who confirmed that they are in active dialogue with the House Legislative Counsel office on developing a new version of the legislation and hope to have an update in the middle of January. The NNA public affairs team also met with staff for Senate oversight committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) to request his support.  Given the comments from many House and Senate members during the hearings, there is a real opportunity to advance these proposals in the new Congress. At the same time, momentum appears to be building for privatization and NNA will be evaluating what, if any, variations could be acceptable and what our key goals and concerns would be for any such effort.

We will be back on the Hill early next year to advocate for these solutions consistent with the historic mission described in another Editor and Publisher article published today. To be ultimately successful, we will need the engagement of all NNA members to ask their legislators to enact these bills but based on the outcome of these meetings, the 119th Congress may be the turning point opportunity to reverse the disastrous policies of the last four years.