Pascrell Celebrates Senate Passage of Landmark Postal Reform

Dreaded prefunding anchor will finally be removed with President Biden’s signature

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09), today celebrated the passage in the Senate of the Postal Service Reform Act, landmark legislation that will stabilize the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) finances which have been in disarray for over 15 years.

“Today Congress took the biggest step in decades to save the Post Office,” said Rep. Pascrell, who authored a heralded 2019 essay demanding many of the reforms passed today. “Tens of millions of Americans are crying out to make their post office work again. This legislation will finally abolish the pension prefunding mandate crushing the Postal Service’s finances and guarantee that universal six-day a week delivery isn’t going anywhere.

Pascrell continued: “The Post Office is one of our most cherished institutions and today’s reforms will let it flourish in the decades ahead. But today’s reforms are but one step and not a completely solution. As I have said for over one year, postal leadership at the top is unacceptable. Louis DeJoy and every Trump-appointed USPS governor must be fired and replaced. I’ll keep demanding it until that happens.”

Rep. Pascrell has been the leading member of Congress seeking positive postal reform. On February 23, 2022, Pascrell became the first member of Congress to tour a Post Office COVID-19 test-kit facility that is part of President Biden’s successful program sending free tests all over America. While he was there Pascrell met with Local 300 postal union officials and thanked all postal workers for their efforts during the pandemic keeping the nation up and running.

Pascrell has also been high critical of postal leadership. On January 25, 2021, Pascrell became the first member of Congress calling on President Biden to fire each of the Postal Board of Governors sitting before his administration began for their silence and complicity in DeJoy’s ongoing damage to postal operations. In February 2021, Pascrell immediately praised the nominations by President Biden of the three new nominees to the USPS Board of Governors and on March 18, Pascrell and Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-VA-11) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR-03) led over 50 House Democrats urging Biden to immediately remove the then-sitting USPS Board of Governors.

On June 3, 2021, Pascrell urged Biden’s three nominees to the postal board to remove DeJoy. Last October, Pascrell led a letter to President Biden requesting that he replace USPS Board of Governors Chairman Ron Bloom, who had consistently backed DeJoy. On November 19, Pascrell praised President Biden’s announcement that he would replace Ron Bloom and nominate in his place Daniel Tangherlini, former Administrator of the General Services Administration.

Since this postal crisis began, Rep. Pascrell has aggressively demanded accountability from USPS. On May 21, 2020, Pascrell wrote to USPS Inspector General Tammy Whitcomb demanding an investigation of turmoil at the USPS, stemming from a pattern of interference engineered by the Trump administration in its efforts to destabilize the post office.

On August 14, 2020 Pascrell became the first member of Congress to call for DeJoy and Trump to be investigated by a state criminal grand jury for their dismantling the Post Office, making a criminal referral to New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal alleging Trump and DeJoy subverted state elections.

On September 30, 2020 Pascrell led members of the New Jersey Congressional Delegation in a letter to Postmaster General DeJoy demanding an emergency visit to the Dominic Daniels mail sorting center in Kearny and requesting information on USPS’s ability to carry out New Jersey’s all vote-by-mail general election. In October 2020, Pascrell made a surprise appearance at the Daniels Facility and demanded access.

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