Biden just got one step closer to replacing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy [View all]

Biden just got one step closer to replacing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy


https://www.alternet.org/biden-replace-dejoy/



Carl Gibson July 25, 2024

Ever since Postmaster General Louis DeJoy — a major Republican donor — was selected to head the United States Postal Service (USPS) in 2020, he's been enacting massively unpopular policies criticized by postal workers and Democrats alike. Now, President Joe Biden may soon be able to replace him.

On Thursday, Politico congressional correspondent Anthony Adragna reported that Biden was nominating former Rep. Val Demings (D-Florida) to fill the last remaining vacancy on the USPS Board of Governors. She, along with former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, are now awaiting confirmation by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Gary Peters (D-Michigan).

Should both Demings and Walsh be confirmed, that would give Biden seven appointees on the nine-member board overseeing USPS. And because the Postmaster General's hiring and firing is up to the board and not Biden, that could mean that DeJoy could be removed from his post by the time Biden leaves office in January of 2025.

READ MORE: Louis DeJoy backs down from plan to consolidate USPS facilities after national backlash

Biden appointees have held a majority on the USPS board since 2022, when three of his appointees were confirmed by Peters' committee. However, his appointees have been slow to fire DeJoy given his close partnership with the Biden administration on clean energy policy. Politico reported last year that DeJoy is rolling out a plan to add roughly 106,000 new electric vehicles to the USPS' fleet of mail delivery trucks, with 66,000 of those trucks on the road by 2028. Biden's landmark Inflation Reduction Act allocated $3 billion to the initiative, and DeJoy has partnered with veteran Democratic strategist John Podesta to implement his plan...............................

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U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testifies during a House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations and Federal Workforce hearing on Capitol Hill May 17, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)