Spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi reminded the House early on of her summer recess in a bid to protect the U.S. Postal Service from efforts to block funding and suppress post-vote in the November election.
Pelosi said the House would return later this week to vote on a bill banning the USPS from changing its operations as service levels from what it had in place at the beginning of 2020. Earlier, the House was not scheduled to vote until 15 September.
She said late Sunday that Donald Trump was trying to sabotage the election by manipulating the postal service, calling Postmaster General Louis DeJoy “a complicit crony” by introducing changes that degrade the service and slow down mail.
“Life, livelihood and the life of our American democracy have been threatened by the president,” she said, demanding a day of action on Tuesday. “In a time of pandemic, the Post Office is central in elections. Americans would not have to choose between their health and their voice. ”
Her remarks echo those of Bernie Sanders, who told NBC’s Meet the Press on NBC on Sunday that Trump’s attacks on post-vote and his administration’s efforts to block funds for the U.S. post office posed “a crisis for American Democracy “ahead of the November presidential election.
‘What you are witnessing is a President of the United States who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, making it harder for people to participate in post-a balloting at a time when people are living their lives on the line set will have to go through to a polling station and vote, ”he said.
An unusual number of Americans are expected to vote by mail this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In recent months, U.S. states have seen record numbers of Americans go to the polls and cast ballots in primary and other elections.
However, there are concerns about whether the USPS, which is already facing a severe financial crisis, will be able to get votes from voters and return them to polling stations on time to count them.
Democrats in Congress announced on Sunday that DeJoy and Robert Duncan, chairman of the board of the Postal Service Board, had been invited to a Aug. 24 hearing by the House oversight committee. The hearing will examine the recent removal of mailboxes and closures of sorting machines nationwide.
DeJoy has strongly denied any political interference, and Trump said in a press release on Saturday that DeJoy was in fact trying to “make the post office great again.”
But last week, Trump openly admitted that he blocked $ 25 billion in proposed aid to the post office because he wanted to make it harder to vote by mail.
Reuters contributed to this report
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