As president, Joe Biden will no doubt do his best to fumigate the federal government but he could be stuck with at least one big pest for years to come: U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
DeJoy, the Trump loyalist who purposely delayed the nation’s mail service to satisfy his boss’ desire to suppress mail-in balloting from Democratic voters, was named to the spot last year by the postal service’s Board of Governors. You might hope that the board, under Biden, would appoint somebody better.
But a majority of the board’s members, four, are Trump appointees, and their terms extend well into the years of the Biden’s administration.
So unless he resigns, DeJoy, a major GOP fundraiser, will remain postmaster general — and have a free hand for the 2022 midterms, supported by a governing board that backed him as he yanked sorting equipment from postal facilities, removed public mailboxes and suspended overtime pay in advance of this month’s elections.
DeJoy is so brazen — and so loyal to Trump’s cause — that on the day after Election Day he defied a federal judge’s order to complete a mandatory sweep of mail-processing facilities for undelivered ballots.
There is a way to end this madness, and we hope Biden takes it. The new president could promptly appoint additional governors to the postal board, which at the moment is three members short. A trio of Biden appointees would give Democrats a 5-4 majority with enough leverage to give DeJoy his much-deserved walking papers.
We also hope Biden’s Department of Justice will heed a call from U.S. Reps. Ted Lieu, D-California, and Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, for a federal investigation of DeJoy and the postal Board of Governors. In a letter to the FBI in August, the lawmakers alleged that DeJoy’s attempts to delay the mail violated federal law.
Send letters to letters@suntimes.com.
