Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Election mail may flow, but USPS ethical lapses must be stanched fast

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy

Louis DeJoy's days as postmaster general should be numbered, writes former GOP Rep. Tom Coleman.

Pool/Getty Images
Coleman was an assistant Missouri attorney general and Republican congressman from 1976 to 1993. Now retired as a lobbyist, he is an advisor to Protect Democracy, an anti-authoritarian watchdog group.

When I was a teenager enduring Kansas City's summers, a highlight of the day was when Bill, our friendly mailman, arrived at the house. The attraction was not so much the few envelopes he might deliver — but rather the opportunity to chat with him for a few minutes over a glass of ice water.

I learned how he and his wife had adopted several children from different ethnic backgrounds, providing them a home and lots of love. He learned how my baseball team was doing. Then he would be off to finish his rounds — the sort of dedicated public servant, with the high ethical standards, we have come to associate with the Postal Service.

For me, those days of blistering heat would soon be filled with minimum wage jobs to earn spending money for high school and college. I saw Bill only occasionally, although 20 years later we did catch up one day when he dropped by my office on Capitol Hill.

My experience is not unique. Millions have had similar relationships with their mail carriers. That would account for why the USPS has the highest favorability rating of all government institutions: 91 percent (and the same share among Democrats and Republicans alike) according to the Pew Research Center.

Today postal workers like Bill are having their load significantly increased. The mail carrier's legendary creed — "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" — is now more difficult to fulfill.

This year's hotly contested presidential election is being conducted during a pandemic sure to result in an unprecedented number of votes cast through the mail. But that's not all. The post office and its employees are under attack by President Trump and his newly handpicked postmaster general, Louis DeJoy.

This duo, with an enabling assist from the USPS Board of Governors, is setting the Postal Service up to fail for political reasons. Trump alleges, without proof, that voting by mail is so flawed that it will steal the election from him.

For his part, soon after arriving DeJoy made major changes in postal delivery capability that call into question whether millions of ballots will be returned in time to be counted. He reportedly has removed 671 high-speed machines capable of sorting over 21 million pieces of mail an hour, canceled employee overtime and removed hundreds of local mailboxes. His changes have resulted in slowing down the mail.

The actions by DeJoy and Trump seem to be designed to create so much confusion that voters will lose confidence in the eventual outcome of the election, or simply not vote.

With overwhelming approval from the public to be reckoned with, the USPS board would be wise to unwind these misguided efforts — rather than rely on a recent series of four firm but temporary federal court orders in response to lawsuits from almost half the states.

DeJoy's days as postmaster general should be numbered. He has recently become embroiled in defending himself in light of evidence he pressured his company's North Carolina employees to make political contributions to Republican candidates and then reimbursed the workers. If true, it would be a criminal violation of federal and state campaign finance laws. He may have also committed perjury by lying about it under oath to Congress.

Then there's Kentuckian Robert Duncan, who is chairman of the USPS Board of Governors and also reportedly a director of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's so-called super PAC — a clear conflict of interest.

Secretary Michael Elston is the board member responsible for carrying out compliance with all statutory requirements and also the Postal Service's chief compliance officer, making him responsible for his colleagues' following the USPS code of ethics.

"All employees are required to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws and ethical principles above private gain," it says. "To ensure that every citizen can have complete confidence in the integrity" or the government, it goes on, "each postal employee must respect and adhere to the principles of ethical conduct."

What's been happening at the Postal Service reflects nothing less than an attempt to undermine our Constitution and the free and fair elections it envisions. Therefore, Elston should immediately open investigations of DeJoy and Duncan for possibly violating Postal Service conduct and ethics breeches. During such an inquiry, the two should be barred from casting any votes on the Board of Governors.

The USPS says its governors are "comparable to the board of directors of a publicly held corporation." For 18 years now, boards of such businesses have been governed by a law setting standards of corporate governance. The USPS, by embracing that statute, has assumed accountability not to shareholders but to its principal stakeholders — the American people.

The postal board, therefore, has a fiduciary duty to the public and must govern with loyalty to the mission of the USPS. Its loyalty is not to the president and certainly not to its own financial or political self-interest.

Board members must follow the USPS codes of conduct and ethical behavior prescriptions — and, most importantly, be loyal to the Constitution they swore to uphold. Doing all that means immediately reversing the harmful decisions DeJoy has implemented, restoring the equipment necessary to handle the onslaught of mailed ballots and paying those who will have to work overtime on election mail.

Having accomplished this, they will have done their part in assuring Americans will have a free and fair election, the basis of our constitutional democracy.

Read More

The Return of Loyalty Tests and the Decline of American Democracy

Faded American flag

The Return of Loyalty Tests and the Decline of American Democracy

Remember when loyalty oaths were used to ferret out and punish people suspected of being Communists? They were a potent and terrifying tool, designed to produce conformity and compliance at the height of the late 1940s, early 1950s Red Scare.

Today, they are back, but in more subtle, if no less coercive, forms. The Trump Administration is using them in hiring and retaining federal employees, in dispensing federal grants, and in passing out perks.

Keep ReadingShow less
Chaos Theory Meets Trump: Why America’s Institutions and Psyche Are Under Siege
File:Donald Trump (29496131773).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Chaos Theory Meets Trump: Why America’s Institutions and Psyche Are Under Siege

There’s a branch of mathematics and science known as chaos theory, which studies dynamical systems; systems that evolve according to specific rules, yet behave in ways that appear random or unpredictable. Despite being governed by deterministic laws, these systems can produce outcomes so sensitive to initial conditions that even the slightest change can dramatically alter their trajectory.

This concept, famously illustrated by the butterfly effect, suggests that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil might set off a tornado in Texas. In other words, minute actions can trigger cascading consequences across complex systems. Chaos theory has long influenced fields like meteorology and economics, helping explain why markets react wildly to rumors or why weather forecasts become unreliable beyond a few days.

Keep ReadingShow less
Heaven as a Hashtag: Trump, Ukraine, and the Transactional Soul of Modern Leadership

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office at the White House on August 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Heaven as a Hashtag: Trump, Ukraine, and the Transactional Soul of Modern Leadership

When Donald Trump called into Fox and Friends on Tuesday August 19th and mused that "I want to try and get to heaven, if possible," citing his role in the Ukraine peace process as a potential ticket upward, he offered far more than a personal aside.

It exposed the ethos of the man where redemption is transactional, compassion is conditional, and leadership is measured not by empathy but by negotiating oneself to heaven.

Keep ReadingShow less
Don’t Federalize and Militarize DC's Local Police

A busy city street with people walking and cars driving. The street is lined with buildings and has a crosswalk. Washington, DC

Getty Images, Erik Gonzalez Garcia

Don’t Federalize and Militarize DC's Local Police

When I walk my toddler home from daycare every evening, it is safe. That's here in Washington, D.C., where I have lived since I moved to work on government accountability 15 years ago.

For perhaps the next 30 days, or longer, District of Columbia residents will be policed by federalized civilian and military officers, per an executive order and presidential memorandum this morning. The executive order directs the police to be federalized to protect "national monuments" (which are in the safest parts of D.C. thanks to the existing park police) and other federal properties, but the memorandum directs the DC National Guard to address crime throughout the capital.

Keep ReadingShow less