States launch lawsuits against Trump/DeJoy as USPS says it’s pausing “service changes”

A sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of states are head­ing to court to seek injunc­tive relief to pro­tect the Unit­ed States Postal Ser­vice just as ris­ing nation­al fury against the Trump regime’s efforts to destroy the USPS from with­in appears to have prompt­ed Post­mas­ter Gen­er­al and Don­ald Trump crony Louis DeJoy to pull back from the cam­paign of sab­o­tage that was already under­way.

Attor­neys Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son of Wash­ing­ton and Josh Shapiro of Penn­syl­va­nia held a news con­fer­ence via tele­phone this morn­ing to announce they’re fil­ing a set of law­suits against Don­ald Trump, Louis DeJoy, and the Postal Ser­vice to pro­tect vote at home and the integri­ty of the nation’s mail system.

Thir­teen states will be join­ing Wash­ing­ton’s suit, which is being filed now.

The venue for the State of Wash­ing­ton’s action is the East­ern Dis­trict of Wash­ing­ton, Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son said.

The fil­ing is “immi­nent” and expect­ed with­in the next two hours or so. The case being brought con­cerns *all* of the recent ser­vice changes, we understand.

Wis­con­sin, Neva­da, Min­neso­ta, and Michi­gan are among the states join­ing the action. Two sep­a­rate law­suits being filed — Wash­ing­ton’s and Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s. How­ev­er, the two actions are being coor­di­nat­ed as part of a joint strategy.

Shapiro thinks there may be around twen­ty states in Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s action. States still have around twen­ty-four hours or so to sign on. Cal­i­for­nia, Delaware, Mass­a­chu­setts, and Maine will def­i­nite­ly be part of the Penn­syl­va­nia action.

As the AGs were unveil­ing their law­suits, the Postal Ser­vice pub­licly announced that it will be paus­ing the “ser­vice changes” (mean­ing, sab­o­tage) that Louis DeJoy and his under­lings had pre­vi­ous­ly ordered, at least for the time being.

“I came to the Postal Ser­vice to make changes to secure the suc­cess of this orga­ni­za­tion and its long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” DeJoy said in a state­ment.

“I believe sig­nif­i­cant reforms are essen­tial to that objec­tive, and work toward those reforms will com­mence after the election.”

“In the mean­time, there are some long­stand­ing oper­a­tional ini­tia­tives — efforts that pre­date my arrival at the Postal Ser­vice — that have been raised as areas of con­cern as the nation pre­pares to hold an elec­tion in the midst of a dev­as­tat­ing pan­dem­ic. To avoid even the appear­ance of any impact on elec­tion mail, I am sus­pend­ing these ini­tia­tives until after the elec­tion is concluded.”

“I want to assure all Amer­i­cans of the fol­low­ing: Retail hours at Post Offices will not change. Mail pro­cess­ing equip­ment and blue col­lec­tion box­es will remain where they are. No mail pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties will be closed. And we reassert that over­time has, and will con­tin­ue to be, approved as needed.”

“In addi­tion, effec­tive Octo­ber 1st, we will engage stand­by resources in all areas of our oper­a­tions, includ­ing trans­porta­tion, to sat­is­fy any unfore­seen demand.”

“The #Savethe­P­ostOf­fice fight is mak­ing a huge impact,” tweet­ed the Amer­i­can Postal Work­ers Union in response to DeJoy’s announce­ment. “We wel­come the sus­pen­sion of USPS ser­vice cuts that delay the mail. But our fight to fix the dam­age to the Post Office is far from done and the USPS urgent­ly needs $25 bil­lion COVID aid from Con­gress to ensure top ser­vice in Novem­ber and beyond.”

Polling shows that the Unit­ed States Postal Ser­vice is a beloved insti­tu­tion that huge majori­ties of vot­ers want to pro­tect from sab­o­tage and destruc­tion.

In response to ques­tions from reporters gath­ered on their con­fer­ence call, Fer­gu­son and Shapiro said that announce­ment will have no bear­ing on their law­suits and that they will pro­ceed ahead at full speed. Nev­er­the­less, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Attor­neys Gen­er­al Asso­ci­a­tion took a vic­to­ry lap, with co-chairs Mau­ra Healey (of Mass­a­chu­setts) and Ellen Rosen­blum (of Ore­gon) declaring:

“We put Trump and his hand-picked Post­mas­ter Gen­er­al on notice, and it worked. It’s no coin­ci­dence that DeJoy backed down just as Demo­c­ra­t­ic AGs announced law­suits. When Dem AGs team up, the Admin­is­tra­tion pays attention.”

“But we won’t believe it until we see it. With­out con­crete action by DeJoy to undo the dam­age already done and pre­vent future prob­lems, we are mov­ing for­ward to hold the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion accountable.”

“And here’s our mes­sage to the Amer­i­can peo­ple: Use your vote. Vote ear­ly; whether in per­son or by mail. How­ev­er you choose to vote, Demo­c­ra­t­ic state attor­neys gen­er­al are stand­ing up to make sure every sin­gle vote is counted.”

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will be return­ing ear­ly from its planned August recess to address the dam­age being caused to the Postal Ser­vice by DeJoy’s direc­tives, Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi announced on the eve of the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion. A vote is planned on leg­is­la­tion that would force DeJoy’s regime to stop its cam­paign of destruc­tion at the Postal Service.

DeJoy has agreed to appear before an emer­gency meet­ing of the House Com­mit­tee on Over­sight and Reform next Mon­day, August 24th. The com­mit­tee’s mem­bers include ris­ing stars Katie Porter and Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez, who are sure to give DeJoy the fierce grilling that he deserves.

U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Prami­la Jaya­pal and Den­ny Heck appeared yes­ter­day with NPI’s Gael Tar­leton at a press con­fer­ence in Seat­tle to denounce the dis­man­tling of the Postal Ser­vice and call for pro­tec­tive mea­sures to be pur­sued to ensure the integri­ty of the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, like adding more drop box­es and push­ing back the date when the elec­tion would nor­mal­ly be certified.