House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she’s calling the lawmakers back to the Capitol to vote on a bill that would block the Trump administration from administering changes to the U.S. Postal Service.
“Alarmingly, across the nation, we see the devastating effects of the President’s campaign to sabotage the election by manipulating the Postal Service to disenfranchise voters,” Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in a statement on Sunday.
“Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, one of the top Trump mega-donors, has proven a complicit crony as he continues to push forward sweeping new operational changes that degrade postal service, delay the mail,” Pelosi said. “And — according to the Postal Service itself — threaten to deny the ability of eligible Americans to cast their votes through the mail in the upcoming elections in a timely fashion.”
Democrats accuse President Trump of removing mail sorting equipment and mailboxes in an effort to squelch mail-in balloting ahead of the November election.
Trump administration officials deny the claims and point out they offered Democrats a deal to provide the U.S. Postal Service $10 billion to shore up its troubled finances. Democrats rejected the offer and said they want $25 billion.
Trump appointed DeJoy earlier this year to try to reform the financially troubled U.S. Postal Service, which has lost nearly $70 billion over the past 11 years.
Pelosi said when the House returns this week, it will vote on the “Delivering for America Act,” which would block DeJoy from implementing “any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on January 1, 2020.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, called on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to reconvene the Senate to take up the House Postal Service bill.
Both chambers had adjourned for the August recess.
The U.S. Postal Service warned last week warned 46 states that mailed-in ballots could be delayed and thus discounted from the Nov. 3 election.
Trump said he believes mass use of mail-in balloting will lead to fraud and other problems as it has in several summer primaries.
