A dubious Trump-era legacy: Postmaster General DeJoy’s ‘reform’ plan delivers bad news for South Dakota
One of Donald Trump's gifts to America that keeps on giving is the strangling of mail delivery by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a former CEO of a private shipping contractor and not coincidentally, a major donor to Trump’s presidential campaigns.
In 2020, DeJoy ushered in a new plan, ironically entitled Delivering for America, which involves cutting service and continually raising prices. This is clearly calculated to create an incentive for shippers to switch over to private competitors such as UPS and FedEx, if they possibly can.
In fairness, the Postal Service has been operating at a deficit for quite some time. Congressional Republicans have insisted on pre-paying employee pensions far into the future. Postal employees enjoy more job security than their counterparts in the private sector. In an era of text messaging and emails, Americans write fewer letters than they once did.
Nonetheless, we still need a strong Postal Service, and the assurance of prompt delivery anywhere in the United States truly does bring our large, diverse country together. Rural residents of states like South Dakota are particularly dependent on the Postal Service, and many Americans receive essential medications through the mail. An ever-increasing number of citizens choose to vote by mail, and must trust the Postal Service to deliver their ballots in time to be counted.
DeJoy’s latest cost-cutting maneuver involves closing mail processing facilities in rural states including those in Huron and Sioux Falls. The facility in Rapid City may also be endangered.
On April 10, South Dakota’s congressional delegation wrote a somewhat toothless letter to DeJoy expressing their concern. Sens. Mike Rounds and John Thune, joined by Rep. Dusty Johnson, began their missive by stating that “(we) believe the potential downsizing or significant reorganization of mail processing facilities through this process could adversely affect South Dakota.”
They went on to concede that “some infrastructure changes and system modernizations may be necessary to mitigate USPS’s financial pressures,” but asserted that “such changes should not come at the expense of … highly rural populations in South Dakota or similar states.”
It appears that much of South Dakota’s mail will be routed through a facility in Omaha, and then sent back to Sioux Falls to be resorted days later. Our congressional delegation did express concern that, “with mail being rerouted out of state … there could be added delays stemming from adverse weather that would affect rural towns, other small communities and tribal nations across South Dakota.”
Finally, they reminded DeJoy of his statutory obligations to provide universal service to rural areas and urged him to consider these adverse effects before downsizing our mail processing operations.
Meanwhile, Sen. Jon Tester from our neighboring state of Montana has introduced legislation to prohibit the closure of that state’s mail processing facility. Perhaps Rounds, Thune and Johnson should support Tester’s bill in a spirit of solidarity, and author similar legislation to protect mail delivery in South Dakota.
It has been pointed out that the Postal Board of Governors could fire DeJoy, which might or might not lead to a reconsideration of the plan to diminish mail processing and delivery in rural states. There is a persistent rumor that President Biden has refrained from pushing for DeJoy’s removal as postmaster general in return for DeJoy’s support for a transformation to non-polluting electric vehicles (like the one above in a public domain photo posted on wikimedia commons) in the postal fleet.
In the meantime, the viability of our mail delivery in South Dakota hangs in the balance. It is unclear whether our congressional delegation is ready to fight for us, or if they will be content to merely express concern.
Jay Davis is a retired Rapid City attorney who regularly writes for The South Dakota Standard.
