[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 149 (Saturday, August 22, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H4256-H4270]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DELIVERING FOR AMERICA ACT
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules,
I call up House Resolution 1092 and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 1092
Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be
in order to consider in the House without intervention of any
question of consideration the bill (H.R. 8015) to maintain
prompt and reliable postal services during the COVID-19
health emergency, and for other purposes. All points of order
against
[[Page H4257]]
consideration of the bill are waived. An amendment in the
nature of a substitute consisting of the text of Rules
Committee Print 116-61, modified by the amendment printed in
the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this
resolution, shall be considered as adopted. The bill, as
amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order
against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. The
previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill,
as amended, and on any further amendment thereto, to final
passage without intervening motion except: (1) two hours of
debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and
ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and
Reform; and (2) one motion to recommit with or without
instructions.
{time} 1030
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts is
recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield
the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall),
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose
of debate only.
General Leave
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
be given 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Massachusetts?
There was no objection.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, on Friday, the Rules Committee met and
reported a rule, House Resolution 1092, providing for consideration of
H.R. 8015, the Delivering for America Act, under a closed rule.
The rule itself executes a manager's amendment from Chairwoman
Maloney, provides 2 hours of general debate on the bill, equally
divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the
Committee on Oversight and Reform, and provides one motion to recommit,
with or without instructions.
Madam Speaker, we are here today because our democracy is being
eroded by this administration. It is under siege on all fronts.
I read the report released this week by the Senate Intelligence
Committee, a Republican-led committee. It was truly shocking. It found
that some in the President's campaign created ``notable
counterintelligence vulnerabilities.''
Make no mistake, they welcomed help from Russia, and they knowingly
used intelligence from Putin's regime.
While this report was released, the President continued to attack his
political enemies. He continued all of the lies. This week, he even
floated the idea that America should hold a do-over of the upcoming
election in November if he doesn't like the outcome.
Are you kidding me?
On top of this, this administration has moved to dismantle the United
States Postal Service. We have all seen the images of mailboxes
uprooted. Others have been chained shut. Sorting machines have
disappeared. Mail service has slowed to a crawl for some Americans,
threatening the delivery of everything from medications to Social
Security checks.
Did you know, Madam Speaker, that 80 percent of our veterans'
prescription medications are delivered by mail? Why would anyone want
to place their health in harm's way?
Why, Madam Speaker? Because this administration knows that more
Americans than ever are likely to vote by mail in November. The U.S.
Postal Service expects 10 times the normal amount of election mail
because of the coronavirus pandemic. This President fears that if more
people vote, the less likely he is to win a second term.
Now, we all recently mourned the passing of our dear friend, the
great John Lewis. Not too long ago, he stood right here on this floor
and he said: ``When you see something that is not right, not fair, not
just, you have to speak up; you have to say something; you have to do
something.''
Madam Speaker, what we are seeing today cannot be dismissed as Donald
being Donald or the President just continuing to be provocative. This
is scary stuff. It is frightening, and we have to do something.
In the face of extraordinary public pressure and action by this
majority, the Postmaster General promised to halt further changes until
after election day. But I have to tell you, I wouldn't trust this
administration to tell me the correct time. Not only was there nothing
in his statement about reversing the damage that has been already done,
there was nothing about reinstalling boxes or sorting machines and
nothing about treating election material as first-class mail.
But the Postmaster General made clear, since, that he has no
intention of undoing what he has done. He doesn't plan on lifting a
finger. He said as much in the Senate hearing yesterday. He made clear
that he didn't even study the impact of these changes on our seniors
before they were implemented. He didn't study the impact on our
veterans first. Apparently, he just made them, Madam Speaker,
struggling Americans be damned.
This administration isn't going to do a single thing about it, and
this is why Congress must act.
Now, my friends on the other side have tried to claim there is no
problem here. They have waved around charts that are weeks and weeks
old to try to pretend that everything is just fine, that everything is
just beautiful.
Well, I don't need some outdated statistics to tell me what is going
on today, Madam Speaker. I don't need empty rhetoric from the occupant
of the White House or Mr. DeJoy. My constituents are my evidence. They
have flooded my office with calls. They have stopped me on the street.
Something is happening here, whether this administration or its allies
want to admit it or not.
Before my friends on the other side try to paint this issue as some
kind of liberal conspiracy, let me remind them: There is no money for
hungry families here, although they badly need it; there is no funding
for State and local governments here, though they are pleading with all
of us for relief. We have already acted on all that. It is Mitch
McConnell over in the Senate who is determined to do absolutely
nothing.
All this bill does is get the Postal Service back to where it was at
the start of the year and provide them with the resources they need,
not just to process an influx of ballots, but to continue delivering
mail, including Americans' Social Security checks and medications. It
ensures that they are able to continue delivering to places in rural
America that their competitors just don't go, and it supports the
Postal Service's more than 630,000 hardworking employees. And we all
owe them a debt of gratitude for their service, especially during this
pandemic.
Madam Speaker, if we don't undermine and tear apart the Postal
Service, then they can handle the increase in mail-in ballots. They
handled two to three times the volume of mail and packages at
Christmastime, and they are determined to handle the volume of
election-related mail. But they need their equipment; they need to pay
their workers; they need confidence that management won't try to
undercut them on the job; and they need support from this Congress,
Democrats and Republicans.
That is it. This is all pretty bare bones, Madam Speaker. I don't see
why in the world that Republicans won't join us on this. It shouldn't
be a radical concept to suggest that, in the United States of America,
every vote should count, whether it is for Donald Trump, Joe Biden, or
someone else.
It shouldn't be a tough call to support the United States Postal
Service. More than 90 percent of Americans view this agency favorably
because it is their lifeline in so many ways.
Madam Speaker, this is a five-alarm fire on our democracy. I think
our country is worth fighting for. I hope all my colleagues join
together to help us save it.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts for yielding, but
that is probably where our agreement is going to end today.
We are not here because democracy is under siege. We are here because
the Democratic House leadership is underperforming. We haven't gotten
appropriations bills negotiated to the White House. We haven't gotten
transportation bills negotiated to the White House. We haven't gotten
water infrastructure bills negotiated to the White
[[Page H4258]]
House. I can go on and on and on. And we are here today with yet
another bill that there is absolutely no effort to negotiate and send
to the White House.
Madam Speaker, you are going to hear more about Donald Trump today
than you are going to hear about the Postal Service today, and that is
because we are not here about the Postal Service. We are here for
another round of attacks on President Trump.
I get it. Folks don't like President Trump on this side of the aisle.
I get it. Folks have concerns about President Trump's rhetoric on all
sides of the aisle.
But the Postal Service has $10 billion. I asked the question
yesterday, Madam Speaker: For the $25 billion bailout package we are
here about today, how much of that money are we going to spend this
year? How much do we need to protect the election infrastructure my
friend from Massachusetts just described? I couldn't get an answer.
Folks didn't know an answer.
Conveniently, we are going to have the Postmaster General called
before the House for a hearing for these answers in about 48 hours.
About 2 days after we have passed this bill, we are going to get all
the answers about why this bill may or may not be necessary.
What my friend from Massachusetts said--I have gotten pessimistic, in
light of our 6-hour Rules Committee hearing yesterday. I actually agree
with my friend from Massachusetts on much more. He is right that we owe
a thank-you to our men and women of the Postal Service for the work
that they are doing.
The previous Postmaster General came to Congress in the spring,
worried that mail volume was going to collapse and the Postal Service
was going to enter a period of financial instability. The truth, Madam
Speaker, is just the opposite. Postal office deliveries have exploded.
Folks are doing e-commerce like never before. Our men and women of the
Postal Service are working harder than ever before, delivering more
packages today than they were 6 months ago. And we owe them a big, big
thank-you for their work during these times. My friend from
Massachusetts is right: It is a lifeline for so many families.
Madam Speaker, it is an election year. Who believes that serving
their constituents comes from denying veterans access to prescription
drugs? Nobody. If that is what this was about, we would have gotten
together, Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate, Congress and the
White House, and we would be moving legislation in a cooperative way.
We heard from the ranking Republican yesterday on the committee. He
wasn't consulted in these conversations. He wasn't brought in to these
conversations. There are no Republican amendments here. There is no
conversation going on with the Senate. This is another wasteful
partisan exercise in a time when--my friend from Massachusetts is
absolutely right--there are real crises that need to be addressed.
I had hoped when we were called back on a Saturday, Madam Speaker, it
would have been to address one of those crises. But the truth is, it is
just the punctuation mark at the end of the Democratic National
Convention week. And to the leadership's credit, they scheduled it so
that it wouldn't interfere with the Republican National Convention next
week.
How convenient that our scheduling was dictated by two political
conventions, because that is the only reason that we are here today,
Madam Speaker: politics.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
I am just getting a little sick and tired of all of the excuses as to
why my Republican friends don't want to join us in helping the American
people.
My friend mentioned the appropriations bills. Well, with all due
respect, we passed almost all of them here in the House. My friend, the
Republican leader in the Senate, hasn't done a damn thing, hasn't
passed one.
We passed the HEROES Act, which would have helped the Postal Service,
which would have provided relief to cities and towns, which would have
provided assistance to those in this country who are going hungry. The
Senate majority leader hasn't done a damn thing, not anything, hasn't
lifted a finger for anybody. And we have even agreed to meet him
halfway. He still won't negotiate.
On an infrastructure bill, we passed an infrastructure bill here.
Negotiate with the Senate? They haven't passed a damn thing. It is
malpractice. If politicians could be sued for malpractice, then
the Senate majority leader would be sued. This is ridiculous.
And here we are with a crisis in the Postal Service. Mail has slowed
down all across the country. Members are getting calls, including
Republican Members. And what is the response? Oh, well, we will just
let it go. You know, we will say we need to do better. We will deal
with this another day.
This is ridiculous, it is unconscionable, and I am tired of the
excuses.
Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Pocan).
Mr. POCAN. Madam Speaker, this President is on a warpath to destroy
the Postal Service and, through that, our elections.
After months of hearing this President, and now Republican Members of
Congress, spread conspiracy theories and misinformation about voting by
mail, he has made GOP megadonor Louis DeJoy his new chief of chaos in
voter suppression.
In an attack on the Postal Service, DeJoy has removed mail processing
equipment, collection boxes, and cut back on overtime. Ninety
Democrats, led by Congresswoman Katherine Clark and me, already
demanded his immediate removal.
Because, on top of this blatant voter suppression, Trump and DeJoy
are hurting millions who depend on the Postal Service every day:
seniors and veterans waiting for lifesaving medications, families
waiting for paychecks, small businesses with delayed packages whose
very survival is already threatened by COVID-19.
On Thursday, the Progressive Caucus held a hearing and heard from
David Williams, the former vice president of the Postal Service Board
of Directors, who resigned in protest to Trump's actions. What he told
us, unfortunately, shocked no one: that the Postal Service was fully
prepared for mail voting until this administration manufactured an
intentional crisis; that DeJoy wasn't selected by the firm that was
hired to find a new Postmaster General, but he was the only candidate
interviewed and was unqualified to lead the Postal Service; and that
Steve Mnuchin sought intrusive control over core Postal Service
operations and wanted to impose a pricing practice that would ruin the
Postal Service.
This chaos is not the result of a pandemic. This chaos was
manufactured by the administration and is intentional.
That is why Congress is acting today.
We are reversing Louis DeJoy's disastrous actions and providing the
Postal Service with the funding it so desperately needs. We won't let
anyone dismantle our Postal Service. The Postal Service belongs to the
people.
{time} 1045
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
Ordinarily, I am concerned that I only have 30 minutes for Rule
Committee debate, but the lunacy that we are hearing down here today
makes me glad that we are going to be done with this in 30 minutes.
Madam Speaker, you know when Elijah Cummings chaired the committee
and Mark Meadows was the ranking member, now President Trump's chief of
staff, we came together to do Postal Service reforms because we all
know the Postal Service needs to be reformed. We all know this. We
could do it today, if it was about Postal Service reform, if it was
about Postal Service improvement, but it is not.
What is the solution today? Throw more money at a problem. We don't
trust the Postmaster General, the other side says. We don't trust the
President, the other side says. So what is the solution to the
manufactured crisis? Give $25 billion to the Postmaster General and the
President of the United States.
In response to my assertion that this House is a do-nothing Congress
because it fails to negotiate with the Senate and the White House, my
friend from Massachusetts lists half a dozen bills
[[Page H4259]]
that this House passed unilaterally with no effort to negotiate with
the Senate or negotiate with the White House.
Madam Speaker, if what we want to do is come and talk, we have a
wonderful Chamber in which to do it. If what we want to do is come in
and get something done, it can only get done together. This is yet
another example of the House leadership's failure to operate in a
partnership fashion.
Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr.
Cole), one of the greatest negotiators in the House, a gentleman who
has a long history of bipartisanship, and thus, legislative success,
the ranking member of the Rules Committee.
Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my good friend for yielding
and very much appreciate his leadership on our committee.
Madam Speaker, I want to rise to oppose both the rule and the
underlying legislation.
Before I do, though, I include in the Record four newspaper articles
discussing the majority's concern about the Postal Service. The first
is a Wall Street Journal editorial; a column by Rich Lowry appearing in
the New York Post; a column by Byron York, appearing in the Washington
Examiner; and a column by Ruth Goldway, a former commissioner of the
Postal Service, appearing in the New York Times.
All four articles make it clear that the majority's reasons for
bringing this legislation, frankly, are ludicrous, and that what they
are proposing actually will make it more difficult to reform.
[From the Wall Street Journal, Aug. 17, 2020]
Nancy Pelosi Goes Politically Postal
(By the Editorial Board)
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling the House back into session
this week to address fears that the U.S. Postal Service is
being infiltrated by alien lizard people posing as letter
carriers. OK, it isn't quite that bad. The actual conspiracy
theory holds that President Trump is strangling the USPS to
hack the November election.
But talk about ``unsubstantiated,'' as the press likes to
call Donald Trump's Twitter emissions. Democrats should be
deeply embarrassed that their leadership has embraced such
claims. Two Congressmen, including Democratic Caucus Chairman
Hakeem Jeffries, wrote to the FBI on Monday to urge, if you
can believe it, a criminal investigation of Postmaster
General Louis DeJoy.
``This conspiracy theory is the most far-flung thing I
think I've ever heard,'' says Stephen Kearney, who worked at
the USPS for 33 years, including as treasurer and a senior
vice president. ``DeJoy was not appointed by President
Trump,'' but by the USPS's bipartisan governors. (Who, as it
happens, selected him unanimously.)
``You can find valid operational reasons for the actions
taken by the Postal Service so far,'' says Mike Plunkett,
another longtime USPS executive who now leads the Association
for Postal Commerce. ``In no way do I detect any criminality
behind them, and I'm at a loss as to how one would reach that
conclusion.''
The Democratic letter to the FBI cites news reports that
the USPS is decommissioning hundreds of mail-sorting
machines. But the context is that overall mail volume has
fallen 33% since 2006. ``They've been taking machines out of
service for years now, and I've been encouraging them to do
it more aggressively,'' says Hamilton Davison, the president
of the American Catalog Mailers Association. ``I think that's
a good thing for America, because we don't want to pay for
stuff that we don't need.''
Mr. Kearney, who now runs the Alliance of Nonprofit
Mailers, concurs. ``It's obvious, to be efficient and not
waste money, you need to take out some of that capacity,'' he
says. His group has similarly been urging productivity
improvements, ``because if they don't do that, our postage
rates are going to go way up.'' A leaked USPS document
floating in the online ether is titled ``Equipment
Reduction.'' But it's dated May 15, and Mr. DeJoy took over
June 15.
Another claim is that the USPS is pulling blue collection
bins off the street en masse. ``They're going around
literally with tractor trailers picking up mailboxes,'' Joe
Biden said last week. ``I mean, it's bizarre!'' The USPS says
it has nearly 142,000 boxes across the country, which are
adjusted as volume and costs dictate. In August 2016, the
USPS's Inspector General said that ``the number of collection
boxes declined by more than 12,000 in the past 5 years.''
Voter suppression by the Obama Administration?
Alarmed Twitter users last week posted a photo of mailboxes
on a flatbed truck in New Jersey. Oops: ``Morristown Mayor
Tim Dougherty said the mailboxes were being replaced with new
anti-fishing boxes,'' the local newspaper explained. On
Monday the USPS said it would postpone this security upgrade
for 90 days ``while we evaluate our customers' concerns''--in
other words, to keep jittery partisans on the internet from
losing their minds before Nov. 3.
Mr. DeJoy is being knocked for trying to cut overtime
costs. But is it any wonder? The day he was sworn in, the
Inspector General reported that in 2019 the post office
``spent $1.1 billion in mail processing overtime and penalty
overtime, $280 million in late and extra transportation, and
$2.9 billion in delivery overtime and penalty overtime
costs.'' For context, the USPS's overall loss that year was
$8.8 billion.
Mrs. Pelosi is trying to put on a political show, starring
Democrats as the saviors of the post office. She says she
wants to pass a bill that ``prohibits the Postal Service from
implementing any changes to operations or level of service it
had in place on January 1.'' Also in the mix may be a $25
billion cash infusion. Then Chuck Schumer will demand that
the Senate come back to town for the same vote. By the way
the letter-carriers union endorsed Joe Biden on the weekend.
This is a made-for-TV phony political crisis. The USPS has
long-term challenges, but enough money to last into 2021. Mr.
DeJoy says there's ``ample capacity to deliver all election
mail.'' Some states have startlingly lax ballot deadlines,
but nobody can pretend with a straight face that it's the
post office's fault. Democrats have also scheduled a hearing
for next Monday so they can yell at Mr. DeJoy in person. How
long before Rep. Adam Schiff says it's another Russia-Donald
Trump conspiracy to steal the election?
____
[Aug. 17, 2020]
The Left's Lunatic `Postal' Conspiracy Theory
(By Rich Lowry)
At this rate, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will be lucky
if he isn't arrested and tried for treason before a people's
tribunal.
DeJoy has quickly replaced Vladimir Putin as the man that
progressive opinion will hold responsible if Trump wins a
second term in November.
According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DeJoy is a
``complicit crony'' aiding Trump's effort to sabotage
American democracy. She believes the two have hatched a plot
to delay mail-in voting and disenfranchise countless
Americans prior to the election.
Protesters over the weekend showed up at DeJoy's Washington
apartment and North Carolina home. Two Democratic congressmen
have called for a criminal inquiry into his changes at the
postal service, and he will testify at a House hearing next
week.
In tried and true fashion, President Trump has stoked
suspicions by saying that he opposes a $25 billion postal-
service bailout in the latest Democratic COVID-relief bill.
According to Trump, blocking this measure--and $3 billion in
election aid to the states--will prevent universal mail-in
voting.
But the bailout doesn't have anything to do with mail-in
voting, and given the billions of pieces of mail handled by
the post office every week, it surely can handle the
increased volume from mail-in voting.
It is true that Postmaster General DeJoy is a major Trump
donor. He made his fortune in shipping and logistics, though,
and he was selected by the postal service's board of
governors.
Little did he know when he took over the agency in June
that he'd soon have a starring role in the country's latest
psychodrama. Every change at the postal service is now seen
through the prism of a belief that the agency is a tool of
creeping authoritarianism.
Letter collection boxes are being removed--never mind that
this has been an ongoing process for years. Underused boxes
are decommissioned or moved to higher-traffic areas. In 2009,
The Washington Post reported that 200,000 boxes had been
shelved over the prior two decades. In 2016, the inspector
general noted that another 12,000 collection boxes had been
cut over the previous five years.
Letter collection boxes all of the sudden have big red
locks on them--well, yeah, as an off-hours device to prevent
the theft of mail, something the service has also done for
years.
The postal service is deactivating mail-sorting machines--
right, and there was a plan for this prior to DeJoy becoming
postmaster general, and it has been long discussed in
response to the declining volume of mail.
DeJoy is cutting back on overtime--indeed he is, because
artificially swollen overtime is an enormous expense that he
hopes to eliminate with a more rational delivery system.
Democrats and much of the media make it sound as though the
post office was an efficient, smooth-running agency before
DeJoy took charge and then, at Trump's behest, transformed it
into place struggling to keep up with broadbased changes in
how we communicate.
In reality, the post office has lost nearly $80 billion
since 2007, and it lost more than $2 billion last quarter.
Unless the service finds a way to innovate, it is headed for
bankruptcy.
This is the impetus for DeJoy's reforms, which should be
welcomed by all the people now caterwauling about how
essential the post office is to the American way of life.
DeJoy has been adamant that the postal service will do its
job regarding mail-in ballots. The post office's recent
warnings to states that they should be mindful of how quickly
ballots can be delivered were played up as yet another
assault on mail-in balloting. To the contrary, they were
intended to avoid unrealistically late deadlines for mail-in
voting that could create a train-wreck in November.
But in their inflamed state, Democrats want a villain--if
not a foreign potentate,
[[Page H4260]]
then the guy in charge of delivering the mail.
____
[From the Washington Examiner]
A Reality-Based Look at Trump and the Post Office
(By Byron York)
The news is filled with reports of President Trump's
``assault'' on the U.S. Postal Service. The president,
Democrats and some in the media say, is deliberately slowing
mail delivery and crippling the Postal Service so that it
cannot handle an anticipated flood of voting by mail in the
presidential election. Former President Barack Obama said
Trump is trying to ``actively kneecap'' the Postal Service to
suppress the vote. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called the House
back into session this week and has set an ``urgent hearing''
for Aug. 24, demanding Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and the
head of the Postal Service Board of Governors testify ``to
address the sabotage of the Postal Service.''
Some of the accusations have grown so frantic that they
resemble the frenzy of a couple of years ago over the
allegation, from many of the same people, that Trump had
conspired with Russia to fix the 2016 election. Now, it's the
Postal Service. But what actually is going on? Here is a
brief look at some of the issues involved.
142.5 billion pieces of mail
The idea that the Postal Service will not be able to handle
the volume of mail in the election, or not be able to handle
it within normal Postal Service time guidelines, does not
make much sense. According to its most recent annual report,
last year, in fiscal year 2019, the Postal Service handled
142.5 billion pieces of mail. ``On a typical day, our 633,000
employees physically process and deliver 471 million
mailpieces to nearly 160 million delivery points,'' the
report says. This year, that number is higher, given the
Postal Service's delivery of census forms and stimulus
checks. Those alone added about 450 million additional pieces
of mail.
In 2016, about 136 million Americans voted in the
presidential election. The number will probably be a bit
higher this year. If officials sent ballots to every single
American registered to vote, about 158 million people, and
then 140 million people returned ballots, the roughly 298
million pieces of mail handled over the course of several
weeks would be well within the Postal Service's ability to
handle. Of course, officials will not send a ballot to every
American registered to vote, and not every voter will vote by
mail. Whatever the final number is, the ballots that are cast
by mail will not cripple a system that delivers 471 million
pieces of mail every day.
There are, of course, compelling examples of election
dysfunction, most notably the mess New York made of some of
its congressional primaries this summer. But rather than
representing a Postal Service problem, that was because some
states are unprepared for a dramatic increase of voting by
mail. The states have to prepare the ballots, address them,
and process and count them when the Postal Service delivers
them. That is the focus of the entirely legitimate fears of a
possible vote-counting disaster this year. But it's not the
Postal Service.
$25 billion for what?
Some news reports have left the impression that the Postal
Service will not be able to handle mail-in ballots without an
immediate infusion of money from Congress. That is not the
case.
The Postal Service is not funded by a regular
appropriation. It is, instead, an ``independent agency'' and
is expected to support itself, beyond a yearly appropriation
of about $55 million to cover the costs of mail for the blind
and overseas balloting in elections.
The Postal Service has lost money for a very long time. In
fiscal year 2019, it had operating revenues of $71.1 billion
and operating expenses of $79.9 billion, leaving it with a
deficit of $8.8 billion. At the moment, Postal Service
officials have told Congress, it has about $14 billion in
cash on hand, putting it on the road to fiscal insolvency
(without further aid) in late 2021.
In the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act,
or CARES Act, the $2 trillion relief measure passed in March,
Congress gave the Postal Service a $10 billion borrowing
authority. After the bill became law, there were negotiations
between the Postal Service and the Treasury Department on the
terms of the borrowing; a deal was announced in July. The
ability to borrow $10 billion, the postmaster general said,
would ``delay the approaching liquidity crisis.''
That was all the aid for the Postal Service in the CARES
Act. Completely separately, the bill also gave $400 million
to something called the Election Assistance Commission for
distribution to states to ``prevent, prepare for, and respond
to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, for the 2020
federal election cycle.''
The next mega-relief package, a $3 trillion bill known as
the Health and Economic Recover Omnibus Emergency Solutions
Act, or HEROES Act, was passed by the House in May by a vote
of 208 to 199. The winning total of 208 votes was comprised
of 207 Democrats and one Republican. Fourteen Democrats and
one independent voted against the measure. The bill has so
far gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled Senate.
The House HEROES Act would give $25 billion to the Postal
Service in what is essentially a bailout. The bill mentions
nothing about helping the Postal Service handle the upcoming
election or any other election. Indeed, the only stipulation
at all placed on the $25 billion is that the Postal Service,
``during the coronavirus emergency, shall prioritize the
purchase of, and make available to all Postal Service
employees and facilities, personal protective equipment,
including gloves, masks, and sanitizers, and shall conduct
additional cleaning and sanitizing of Postal Service
facilities and delivery vehicles.'' If the House Democrats
who wrote and passed the bill intended the money to be spent
specifically for elections, they did not say so in the text
of the legislation.
Separate from the Postal Service provisions, the bill would
give $3.6 billion to the Election Assistance Commission for
distribution to states ``for contingency planning,
preparation, and resilience of elections for federal
office.'' There has been some confusion about that; some
discussion of the current controversy has left the impression
that Democrats want $3.6 billion for the Postal Service for
the election. In fact, the $3.6 billion would be for the
states' election use. In neither the CARES Act, which is now
law, nor the HEROES Act, which has been passed by the House
but not the Senate, is there any money given to the Postal
Service specifically for the election. In any event, the
Postal Service has the capacity to handle the election and
does not need any additional money specifically to do the
job.
The latest reform proposal
Whatever its other concerns at the moment, the Postal
Service does have chronic financial problems. This year,
Trump chose DeJoy, who made a fortune in shipping and
logistics and whose former company was a contractor of the
Postal Service for many years, as the new postmaster general.
(DeJoy is also a major donor to Republicans and the Trump
campaign.) DeJoy has attempted to deal with some of the
Postal Service's systemic problems with a pilot program to
make deliveries more efficient while reducing the Postal
Service's crippling overtime costs, which added up to more
than $1 billion in fiscal year 2018.
In the past, postal delivery worked this way: A worker
would arrive in the morning and work on various things in the
office--sorting mail, handling holds on mail, waiting for
incoming mail to arrive to prepare for delivery. That often
involved waiting around for hours and then starting an actual
delivery route later in the day. Once started, a route has to
be finished, and that involved workers going into overtime as
they delivered through their route as evening approached.
DeJoy's plan, now being implemented in a pilot program in
about 200 cities, is called Expedited to Street/Afternoon
Sortation, or ESAS. Under it, a worker would arrive in the
morning, collect all the mail that was ready to go out, and
head out for delivery--``retrieve, load, and go.'' Then,
after finishing the delivery route, the carrier would return
to the office and do in the afternoon the office work that
used to be done in the morning. That way, when the end of his
or her shift arrived, that would be the end of the workday,
with no overtime incurred. Mail that arrived to the office in
the afternoon, while the carrier was doing office work, would
be delivered in the next morning's route. It would be ready
and waiting when the carrier arrived for ``retrieve, load,
and go.''
The effect to customers would be that mail that was
delivered to the office in the afternoon would be delivered
the next morning, instead of that evening. The effect to the
Postal Service would be to save an enormous amount of money
in overtime.
In addition, there have been reports of the Postal Service
removing collection boxes and sorting machines. While some
Democrats and journalists have portrayed that as another
effort toward voter suppression, the fact is the number of
letters the Postal Service handles each year has declined for
20 years since the arrival of email. In those last two
decades, the Postal Service has downsized its capabilities as
the number of letters handled has decreased. Here is how the
Washington Post described the situation, specifically
concerning sorting machines: ``Purchased when letters not
packages made up a greater share of postal work, the bulky
and aging machines can be expensive to maintain and take up
floor space postal leaders say would be better devoted to
boxes. Removing underused machines would make the overall
system more efficient, postal leaders say. The Postal Service
has cut back on mail-sorting equipment for years since mail
volume began to decline in the 2000s.''
Some Democrats have characterized the current reform
efforts, much needed in an agency losing so much money, as
part of the president's master plan to steal the election.
But together, the Expedited to Street/Afternoon Sortation
program and the cutback in sorting capacity would seem to be
reasonable measures of the type the Postal Service needs to
implement, and indeed has been implementing over the years.
Yet this is what Democrats, and some of their allies in the
press, have labeled as an ``assault'' on the Postal Service.
Nightmare scenarios
Many news accounts have included stories of Americans
suffering from interruptions in Postal Service deliveries.
For example, a story in the New York Times headlined ``Postal
Crisis Ripples Across Nation As Election Looms'' included the
story of Victoria Brownworth, a freelance journalist in
[[Page H4261]]
Philadelphia. ``For Ms. Brownworth, who was paralyzed four
years ago, the mail is her lifeline,'' the New York Times
said, ``delivering prescriptions and checks and mail-in
ballots to her Philadelphia home. But that lifeline has
snapped. She said she had received mail just twice in the
past three weeks, and she dreaded November's election,
worried that her ballot would suffer the same fate as the
oxygen tube that she ordered three weeks ago--and that had
still not arrived.''
Other news reports have included many other examples. They
are largely, if not entirely, anecdotal. While each is
serious for the person involved, at the moment, it is
impossible to tell how much of a national problem they
represent. People who keep track of the Postal Service
suspect that many of the stories are rooted in workforce
availability problems related to the coronavirus pandemic,
plus the changes in operations (for example, closing a
facility to clean it during an outbreak) that have become
part of life during the pandemic. The Postal Service would
not be the only large organization that has found it
impossible to operate as usual during the crisis.
There is also the fact that the Postal Service does, on
occasion, fail to deliver the mail. In its annual reports, it
includes data on ``performance outcomes.'' For example, for
first-class mail, which is the type of mail that would be
most employed for election purposes, the goal in fiscal year
2019 was to deliver 96% of letters in one to three business
days. Its actual performance was 92%. So 8% of first-class
letters were not delivered on time. Now, consider that the
Postal Service handled 54.9 billion pieces of first-class
mail in fiscal year 2019. That is more than 4 billion pieces
of first-class mail that were not delivered on time. And
that, in a fraught political situation, could be the basis
for a lot of anecdotes in news articles.
Many of those anecdotes, by the way, appear to have made it
to the media with the help of the Postal Service unions.
There are two major unions representing Postal Service
workers. On Friday, the largest postal union, the National
Association of Letter Carriers, endorsed Democratic candidate
Joe Biden for president. In June, another union, the American
Postal Workers Union, endorsed Biden as well. In 2016, both
unions endorsed Hillary Clinton. In 2008 and 2012, both
unions endorsed Barack Obama. In 2004, they endorsed John
Kerry. And so on.
One more note about delivery times. A few days ago, the
Washington Post published a story headlined ``Postal Service
warns 46 states their voters could be disenfranchised by
delayed mail-in ballots.'' The paper obtained letters from
Postal Service leadership to various states informing them
that some of their election deadlines are ``incongruous with
the Postal Service's delivery standards.'' The resulting
``mismatch,'' the Postal Service said, ``creates a risk that
ballots requested near the deadline under state law will not
be returned by mail in time to be counted under your laws as
we understand them.'' In other words, several states are not
giving the Postal Service long enough to deliver a ballot to
a voter and then deliver the filled-in ballot to the state
election board. For example, if a state's law allows a voter
to request a ballot seven days before the general election
but also requires that votes must be received by election day
to be counted--that would be a recipe for a lot of votes not
being counted. It was an entirely reasonable concern on the
part of the Postal Service, and it is a problem more for the
states than the Postal Service. Yet media discussion of the
story suggested it was just another chapter in what one
source in the Washington Post account called ``the
weaponization of the U.S. Postal Service for the president's
electoral purposes.''
Trump confuses everything
Despite the heated rhetoric, many of the Postal Service's
problems are relatively clear, if extremely difficult to
solve. In the context of the upcoming election, Trump has
repeatedly added confusion to the situation, most recently
with extended discussions in a television interview on
Thursday and a press conference on Friday.
In the press conference, Trump was asked, ``If the
Democrats were to give you some of what you want . . . would
you be willing to accept the $25 billion for the Postal
Service, including the three and a half billion dollars to
handle mail-in voting?'' As has happened many times in this
controversy, the question conflated the Democrats' proposal
for $25 billion for the Postal Service and the request for
$3.6 billion for the Election Assistance Commission. In any
event, Trump answered, ``Sure, if they give us what we
want.'' He then began to elaborate on other policy
priorities.
``So, if they were to give you that, you would sign off for
the money for the Postal Service?''
``Yeah, but they're not giving it to me,'' Trump said.
``They're giving it to the American people.''
``But if they were to agree to that--``
``Yeah, I would,'' Trump said. ``I would certainly do that.
Sure, I would do that. Yeah.''
The next day, Friday, Trump spoke to Fox News's Maria
Bartiromo. ``They [Democrats] want $3.5 billion for the mail-
in votes, OK, universal mail-in ballots, $3.5 billion,''
Trump said. ``They want $25 billion for the post office. Now,
they need that money in order to have the post office work so
it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.
Now in the meantime, they aren't getting there. By the way,
those are just two items. But if they don't get those two
items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting
because they're not equipped to have it.''
In fact, while the $3.5 billion proposal for the Election
Assistance Commission (it is actually $3.6 billion) is
specifically for the purpose of facilitating mail-in voting,
the $25 billion for the Postal Service is basically a
bailout. In April, the previous postmaster general, Megan
Brennan, citing a ``steep drop'' in mail volume during the
coronavirus crisis, had asked for far more--$75 billion. The
Postal Service didn't get anywhere near that much money in
the first relief bill, the CARES Act--just $10 billion in
borrowing authority. So when the second relief mega-bill came
up, Democrats threw in $25 billion for the Postal Service. It
was not about mail-in voting. (On Sunday morning, White House
chief of staff Mark Meadows, who as a congressman followed
postal issues closely, said the administration offered House
Democrats $10 billion for the Postal Service.)
Nevertheless, the president connected the two and suggested
that the Postal Service needed the $25 billion, and the
Election Assistance Commission needed $3.5 billion, to handle
ballots in the election, and that he would not give it to
them for that very reason.
``How would you like to have $3.5 billion, billion, for
mail-in voting?'' Trump asked. ``So, if you don't have it--do
you know how much money that is? Nobody has any idea . . .
Oh, $3.5 billion. They want $25 billion for the Post Office
because the Post Office is going to have to go to town to get
these ridiculous ballots in . . . Now, if we don't make a
deal, that means they don't get the money. That means they
can't have universal mail-in voting. They just can't have
it.''
The bottom line was that Trump made a mess of the issue. He
didn't make a case against universal mail-in voting, which
does not exist in the United States. He didn't make clear why
Democrats wanted $25 billion for the post office. He
suggested that not agreeing to the $25 billion was a way to
stop universal mail-in voting, which it is not. He didn't
address the serious problems at the Postal Service which need
attention and do not have anything to do with voting. In all,
he left the issue more confused than it had been beforehand--
and that was saying something.
Democrats smell victory
On Friday, the Washington Post published a story headlined
``Trump's assault on the U.S. Postal Service gives Democrats
a new campaign message.'' Put aside the casual use of the
word ``assault.'' The fact is, Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer, and other top Democrats are jumping on the
Postal Service controversy with both feet. ``Democrats are
already blanketing the airwaves, latching on to the
opportunity to highlight support [for the Postal Service],''
the paper reported. Obama has joined in, tweeting that
seniors and veterans and small businesses ``can't be
collateral damage for an administration more concerned with
suppressing the vote than suppressing a virus.''
The Democratic commentariat cheered and signaled it is
ready to press the issue until election day. ``Trump donor &
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy should be in the crosshairs of
every relevant congressional committee, inspector general,
prosecutor, investigative journalist, whistleblower, class
action lawyer, editorial board, etc. etc. etc.,'' tweeted
former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. No doubt that is
precisely what will happen in the Democratic world and some
major media outlets between now and Nov. 3. But shouldn't
someone, sometime take a look at what is actually happening?
____
[From the New York Times, Aug. 18, 2020]
I Was a Postal Service Regulator for 18 Years. Don't Panic.
(By Ruth Y. Goldway)
President Trump has threatened to withhold funds from the
United States Postal Service. The new postmaster general,
Louis DeJoy, has embarked on cost-cutting measures to
eliminate overtime and remove sorting machines. These actions
have created worries that Americans, reluctant to walk into
voting booths because of Covid-19, will be unable to vote by
mail this year.
I served as a regulator of the Postal Service for nearly 18
years under three presidents and I urge everyone to be calm.
Don't fall prey to the alarmists on both sides of this
debate. The Postal Service is not incapacitated. It is still
fully capable of delivering the mail. The focus of our
collective concerns should be on how the Postal Service can
improve the speed of delivery for election mail.
First, the president is wrong about the Postal Service's
finances. While the agency indeed has financial problems, as
a result of a huge increase in packages being sent through
the system and a credit line through the CARES Act, it has
access to about $25 billion in cash. Its own forecasts
predict that it will have enough money to operate into 2021.
The Postal Service's shaky financial situation has to do in
large part with the drop in first-class mail (typically used
for letters), about 30 percent less than a decade ago. But
the service's expensive, overbuilt infrastructure can absorb
the addition of more mail in 2020--including election mail
that is mailed to and sent back by every voter in every
state.
[[Page H4262]]
The new postmaster general's management team still includes
many knowledgeable and seasoned executives. And the Postal
Service has over 500,000 employees who are remarkably honest,
dedicated and used to working through emergencies:
hurricanes, snow storms, social unrest and pandemics.
While the Postal Service has contemplated many different
approaches to modernizing and improving efficiency, there has
not been a consensus on how much the service should reduce
costs. It is not at all surprising that Mr. DeJoy's choice of
particularly visible cuts has raised alarms.
The Office of the Inspector General of the Postal Service
has agreed to a review of the changes. And Congress has been
called back to conduct its own review next week, restore
trust in the institution and ensure that voting by mail
proceeds smoothly.
Given that there is enough money and perhaps more if the
president agrees to additional bailout funds; that there is
plenty of capacity in the system; and that voting by mail can
alleviate a health threat to the nation, the Postal Service
should be made to handle all election mail as if it were
first-class mail. This is where the policy discussions
surrounding the Postal Service should settle.
Most election-related mail is sent at nonprofit rates. The
1993 National Voter Registration Act requires the Postal
Service to charge state and local election offices the same
price for postage as nonprofit mailers. The Postal Service
has a history of providing extra care and attention to
election-related mail, on the level of first-class mail:
usually two to four days for delivery. A special logo and bar
code identifiers were created so that mail sorters were able
to pull election mail out from the routine mail stream to be
sure it was delivered as soon as possible.
But a recent letter sent by Thomas J. Marshall, the general
counsel for the Postal Service, to election officials around
the country seems to suggest that election mail will now be
treated like regular nonprofit mail (typically three to 10
days for delivery) and may take as long as 15 days. This is
not acceptable.
The Postal Service has the capacity to ensure that ballots
sent to voters arrive on time and that ballots dropped into
the system by voters are postmarked and delivered in times
that accord with state and local guidelines. In their meeting
with Congress next week, the leaders of the Postal Service
should guarantee that election mail will continue to be
treated as first-class mail. The Congress should agree that
there will be no additional financial support for the Postal
Service without this promise.
But state and local election officials must also recognize
the possibilities of delays and plan for earlier mailings so
there will be more days for ballots to be returned. Voters
must be reminded to send in requests for ballots, change of
address, voter registration forms and especially filled-out
ballots as early as possible.
The Postal Service does indeed need a bailout from Congress
so that it can be counted on to deliver the mail, medicines
and other vital products for years to come. It needs funds to
rebuild its more than 30,000 post offices and aging vehicle
fleet to reduce its reliance on temporary workers and to
broaden the range of services it provides. But these problems
do not affect this year's election.
Americans must continue to support the Postal Service,
whose existence is enshrined in our Constitution, by using
its vote-by-mail services to save lives now and to protect
our democracy in the future.
Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I rise to oppose the rule for a very simple
reason. It is a silly rule. It actually violates the rules that my
friends passed at the beginning of this Congress. The legislation
before us has not gone through any committee, has not been marked up,
has not been debated, has not been amended.
My friend said at the beginning of the Congress they wouldn't bring
legislation like that to the floor, they conveniently waived that rule
yesterday. So here it comes with no committee procedure or markup. We
had a number of amendments, Madam Speaker, that were presented to the
committee, none of them were made in order.
I offered an amendment for what is called an open rule, where any
Member could come down here and put forward what they thought would be
a better idea since we had no opportunity to do that in committee. That
too was rejected.
So this rule is a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum from the majority,
and it means you can pass it in the House, but it is not going anywhere
else.
Now, let's turn to the bill itself. My friends say that--we are going
to hear a lot of bad things about the Postmaster General in the course
of the morning. I have never met him. I don't know him. The people that
do know him say that he is a really good guy, but I don't know. We are
going to hear a lot of terrible things about him. But at the end of the
day my friends are going to vote to give him $25 billion, and they are
going to do it in a bill that has no reforms in it, just says you can't
change anything. Now, how smart is that?
You can't change anything in an institution that is losing $8 to $9
billion every single year. We don't trust the person who heads this,
but we are going to give him $25 billion. Do we need that money?
Absolutely not. The post office tells us they have $15 billion on hand,
they have access to a $10 billion line of credit that will more than
take them for a year from now. So we don't need to be spending this
money right now. It is a silly, silly bill.
But I want to give my friends some free political advice. They want
to pass this bill. They want to get it through the Senate. They want to
get it to the President's desk. They want to get it signed. I believe
that. If that is true, make it bigger. Do exactly what my friend, the
distinguished chairman of the committee said, let's put some stuff in
it that we agree on.
The President of the United States says, I think every family in
America that makes less than $75,000 a year needs help right now, they
need $1,200 per adult, $500 per kid, that would be $3,400, a one-time
payment for a family of four. Attach that to this, it would pass the
floor unanimously in a bipartisan fashion and be picked up by the
Senate. And the President said, through his chief of staff, I will sign
something like that.
You could do something a little bit different. We are all having our
schools open right now all across the country. My friends passed $100
billion in the HEROES Act for it. The President said, actually, we
think it would take about $105 billion. Put that on this and help every
school district in America. But my friends chose not to do that, but if
you do, it will pass here, it will pass the Senate, and the President
would sign it.
Let's talk about unemployment. The President said, hey, we think the
$600 extra is a little high, but while we are negotiating, by the way,
we will keep paying it. My friends on the other side said, no, they can
do without the $600. And then the President said, well, we think $200
is the right number, but we can go to $400. Put that on here. Every
unemployed person in America would get $400 a week. Right now, thanks
to the Speaker and the minority leader in the United States Senate,
they are getting zero. The only help they are getting is from the
President who is using Herculean executive orders to try and get them
some additional relief.
So this is a joke. This is, as my friend the distinguished Member
from Georgia said, a theatrical moment punctuating the two conventions,
the Democratic Convention and leading into ours. No legislation is
going to happen because my friends aren't serious about legislation.
No money is going to get to the post office because it can't pass the
Senate, and the post office doesn't need it anyway. So we are going to
have an entertaining couple of hours. Fortunately, it is on a Saturday
morning, so I don't think very many Americans are going to waste their
time listening to this.
When my friends want to get serious, when they want to negotiate,
when they want to move something to the floor, we will be ready.
With that, Madam Speaker, I urge rejection to the rule and rejection
of the bill.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Madam Speaker, I would love to spend weeks and weeks discussing this
in committee, but the truth is that is what the Trump administration
wants, to run out the clock before the November elections. So trust in
our democracy is undermined, and they can act like there is some
conspiracy if he loses.
I have heard my friends on the other side of the aisle talk about
process, but I really question their judgment here. They thought that
dealing with cheese was such a national emergency last Congress that
they used emergency powers to bring a bill on that topic to the floor
during a government shutdown no less.
But today, as seniors can't get lifesaving medications and our
veterans can't get social security checks, they want to hit pause. Our
Postal Service is in chaos. Give me a break.
You know, my friends say they don't know who the Postmaster General
is.
[[Page H4263]]
Let me tell you who he is. He is like the least qualified candidate for
the job. He is a big, mega donor to Donald Trump. And my Republican
friends are believing everything Mr. DeJoy says, like claiming there is
no mail shutdown.
Well, let me remind them what the Postmaster General wrote in a
recent memo that these changes have had: ``Unintended consequences that
have impacted our overall service levels.'' Those are his words, Madam
Speaker.
He is transforming the Postal Service all right. Transforming it from
reliable to chaotic right before an election. So even if you trust Mr.
DeJoy, which I do not, even he acknowledges that there is something
happening here.
Those on the other side of the aisle cannot have it both ways here.
This administration apparently won't lift a finger to fix this problem,
but this Congress is acting. And I would respectfully urge my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join us. Help the American
people. They should be your priority, not the guy in the White House.
Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas
(Ms. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise with a sense of urgency. I
rise because the Postal Service is near collapse. I rise in the name of
Army Sergeant Retired Boudreau, stage 4 cancer, and Katy, stage 4
breast cancer. These are the desperate people that are feeling the
brunt of a collapsed Postal Service. The voices I listen to are the
letter carriers who are denied the ability to deliver mail, or the
postal workers who have no machines to deliver mail.
H.R. 8015 is an emergency SOS act, Delivering for America. It is
crucial that we meet today, not because we are political, because we
had to get here as fast as we could to be able to acknowledge that the
Postal Service is a crucial lifeline for Americans.
Madam Speaker, I submitted an amendment. I am glad that the Rules
Committee moved on a closed rule. This is an emergency. Later on today,
I will introduce Protecting Democracy by Securing the Right to Vote,
that will allow you to request ballots online, by phone, or mail, and
most importantly, setting a 10-business-day mail return time for
ballots sent by mail and are postmarked on election day.
Why?
Because as we are working today to ensure that mail ballots are safe
and secure under H.R. 8015, we have seniors who are listening to the
scare tactics that are being said from the highest office in the land.
They are frightened.
Yesterday, I was at the house of a blind senior citizen, she can't
get out to vote, she will have to do a mail ballot.
So I rise enthusiastically to support the H.R. 8015 rule because we
are in a collapse of the postal system. It is urgent. We need $25
billion, and we need to do it now. I ask my colleagues to support it,
and let it be bipartisan.
Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on the Rule for H.R. 8015, the
Delivering For America Act.
I thank Chairman McGovern for the work of the Rules Committee to
bring this important measure to the Floor of the House for
consideration.
I also thank Chairwoman Maloney for her leadership in drafting H.R.
8015, which is being debated under the Rule.
I offered an Amendment to improve this very good bill, but it was not
included in the Rule for H.R. 8015.
The Jackson Lee Amendment, if it had been included would have ensured
that ballots postmarked on or before Election Day would have ten
business days following that date to be delivered by the Postal Service
to local elections officials to have it counted for the election.
I offered this amendment out of consideration for the nearness of the
election and the likelihood that the U.S. Postmaster will not change
the policies that have led to the decommissioning of mail sorters and
mailboxes, which is slowing down the U.S. Mail.
The job of the United States Postal Service is to receive, process,
and deliver the mail without favor or special consideration to anyone.
I applaud the work done in the underlying bill to provide relief to
the Postal Service, and I appreciate the desire to narrowly focus the
bill only on addressing the issues arising out of intentional efforts
to disrupt mail service.
I believe that we must be more aggressive in our approach to protect
the election and make sure that Election Day does not become a victim
of COVID-19.
I will work with my colleagues to ensure that all available means are
provided to ensure that every voter, no matter their party or
preference has access to cast a vote that will be counted in the
November election.
I support the Rule for this bill because it provides much-needed
protection to postal workers and relief for those who are dependent on
the mail service for sustaining life and health as well as commercial
needs and business.
In 2019, the Postal Service:
Delivered 142.6 billion pieces of mail to 260 million addresses in
America;
Delivered 1.2 billion prescriptions, including most of the
medications ordered by the VA;
Employed 633,108 of our friends and neighbors, including more than
100,000 veterans;
Served 70 percent of businesses with fewer than ten employees;
Had a 90 percent favorabilty rating, making it the most popular
federal agency.
The Postal Service:
Is often the only delivery option for rural America where service is
not profitable;
Delivers 48 percent of the world's mail with one of the world's
largest civilian vehicle fleets;
Is a vital service for the more than 18 million seniors who do not
use the Internet.
The Postal Service has become a pharmacy of choice for millions of
Americans who live in pharmacy deserts--locations where there are no
pharmacies to serve communities.
The Postal Service is an essential component to Veterans' health
because they deliver medicines to our veterans.
The VA has now confirmed to us that the United States Postal Service
(USPS), which is responsible for delivering about 90 percent of all VA
mail order prescriptions, has indeed been delayed in delivering these
critical medications by an average of almost 25 percent over the past
year, with many locations experiencing much more significant delays.
Under the urgent need to fix the postal service, we must not forget
that the Postal Service employees are essential workers in COVID-19,
and if they are essential it means that the work they do is essential.
In addition to delivering prescriptions and business mail, they are
also delivering democracy to millions of voters who will need to cast
their ballot by mail this election year to reduce their risk of
contracting COVID-19.
The U.S. mail service has provided essential mail service for
absentee voting for well over 100 years by enabling Union troops to
vote during the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korean War,
Vietnam War, Iraqi Freedom, and to this day.
Since that time, absentee or not, in-person voting has grown in
popularity across the United States and is now a welcomed and valued
component for assuring citizen participation in public elections.
In 2016, 20.9 percent of all votes cast in that federal election were
done so by absentee ballots and this year that number is expected to be
much higher due to COVID-19.
The attack on the viability and value of absentee voting should be
viewed as just one component of many assaults on our elections system
that may make this a very difficult election year.
This view is shaped by the decades of elections filled with
disinformation and misinformation tactics designed to suppress or
repress black, LatinX, and young voters from voting or having their
votes counted.
For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting in
support of the Rule for H.R. 8015.
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Burgess), a member of the Rules Committee and the Energy and
Commerce Committee.
Mr. BURGESS. Madam Speaker, this bill, H.R. 8015, does seem to be
rushed. And here is the biggest thing, it is not going to address the
core problem that exists in the United States Postal Service.
This bill appropriates a $25 billion bailout using emergency
supplemental funding, removing it from the previously agreed to
bipartisan budget agreement numbers, and prohibits the Postal Service
from making any reforms until next year at the earliest.
So if this bill is intended to improve efficiency or effectiveness of
the Postal Service, I would just simply ask: How in the world is it
supposed to do that if it is prohibited from making any changes?
The Postal Service is in trouble, every Member of this Chamber,
Republican or Democrat, understands this. We should be deeply concerned
about the precarious position of the Postal Service. But despite the
narratives, this problem has been decades in the making.
The Postal Service's operational pains have been festering literally
for
[[Page H4264]]
decades. Since 2007 mail volumes have fallen year after year as
American consumers and businesses have chosen digital communication
over letters and mailed advertising. Over the same period, the number
of addresses requiring delivery and retirement obligations for retired
Postal Service employees have continued to grow. So in very simple
terms, revenues have fallen, and costs have risen for over a decade.
{time} 1100
This novel coronavirus' impact on the economy is only exacerbating
this situation. The Postal Service lost $2.2 billion in the second
quarter of this year. H.R. 8015 kicks the can down the road and forces
the Postal Service to continue to sustain financial losses. No reforms
to modernize the Postal Service, so we should expect its fiscal health
to worsen.
Now, in spite of all the heated rhetoric today, the Postal Service
will not collapse tonight. The Postal Service has informed Congress
that it has enough cash on hand to remain solvent through August 2021.
That is a year from now if you are doing the math at home. And Congress
has already provided an additional lifeline by raising the Postal
Service's loan authority by $10 billion.
Instead of voting on this rushed and partisan bill, Members of this
Chamber could work together to solve the problem. Congress has time to
work through the proper committees, provide the proper oversight,
provide the proper reforms, and preserve this essential service.
Let's vote against this bill today, a dictatorial bill brought to us
by the Speaker of the House, H.R. 8015, and work together in finding a
meaningful and lasting fix for the United States Postal Service.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I have heard some of the Republicans
clamor last night in the Rules Committee all about statistics.
Well, let's look at some. This is from the Postal Service's most
recent quarterly report. It compares on-time delivery for single-piece
first-class mail this fiscal year so far as compared to last fiscal
year. Do you see the red line? It is going in the wrong direction. Mail
is slowing. People aren't getting deliveries that they need on time.
This is just through the end of June. We don't know what truly happened
in July or so far in August.
Our constituents are not lying to us. Their mail is delayed. Their
medications are delayed.
Yesterday, we were told: You know, people who are on Social Security
don't have to worry because they get all their Social Security checks
electronically. We know that is not true. We know that close to 1
million people get Social Security and SSI through the mail.
So, this is real. This is happening. And we need to do something
about it.
The fact that this is happening in the middle of a pandemic right
before an election, I mean, I don't believe in coincidences. This is
deliberate, and it is shocking. As I said before, this is a five-alarm
fire on our democracy.
Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from
Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), a distinguished member of the Rules
Committee.
Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I include in the Record an article, ``Quit Interfering
and Save the Postal Service,'' by the former chair of the Board of
Governors of the Postal Service, David Fineman.
[Aug. 5, 2020]
Quit Interfering and Save the Postal Service
(By S. David Fineman)
The U.S. Postal Service is in trouble and needs help just
like the airlines, large and small corporations, and
consumers. There are ways to save it if Congress takes action
very soon.
Where to start with its problems? The USPS is losing
billions because of the pandemic. Its leadership has said
running out of money is a question of when, not if. Its board
of governors temporarily lost its quorum this year and is now
made up only of Trump administration appointees. The
president of the United States called the Postal Service a
``joke.'' And now state election officials are warning that
reduced mail service could interfere with mail-in ballots in
November.
I served as a governor of the United States Postal Service
from 1995 through 2005. I was nominated by President Bill
Clinton, and served as chairman during the administration of
President George W. Bush. By law, the USPS should have nine
members on its board, five of one party and four of another.
During my tenure, there was never any interference by the
president in the business of the USPS, like there is
currently.
What is happening now is unprecedented, and we wonder why.
Let us hope it is not to disturb the election process and
mail-in ballots.
During my first year on the board, it became clear the
rate-making process, which decides how much one pays to mail
a letter or a package, made no sense. Not until 2004 was
there movement on any legislation in Congress. Eventually the
chairman of the committee overseeing the Postal Service, Dan
Burton (R-Ind.), and the ranking member, Henry Waxman (D-
Calif.), agreed on the outline of a bill. The blll, with a
few changes, passed the House of Representatives, the Senate,
and then was signed into law by Bush in 2006.
One section of that legislation called for the USPS to
prefund its pension obligations for 75 years. I remember
meeting with the then-postmaster general, and after a
thorough briefing, we both concluded the USPS would never
have the necessary funds to and maybe naivety, I believed
congress would amend the law in due time to eliminate that
burden.
So here we are in 2020, in the middle of a pandemic.
Congress and the administration cannot agree on how to fix
the USPS. Everyone in the so-called postal community,
ihcluding its unions, agree the prefunding requirement is not
needed. Let us get legislation to eliminate the prefundlng
requirement passed.
What else can be done? First, let us stop the parochial
mindset of Congress. The USPS has needed to right-size for
some time, and not just close post offices. Because of
population shifts, it can consolidate large processing
plants, so they can process mail from various states and
municipalities.
Last week, Treasury released $10 billion already allocated
to the USPS, with conditions that are at best questionable.
It was required to share with Treasury details of contracts
it negotiated with Amazon and others. Congress should
allocate without any conditions, just like it has bailed out
multinational corporations as a result of the pandemic.
If we believe what we hear from the administration and the
postmaster general they seem to have two solutions: First,
raise the price of packages, although the rate-making process
has confirmed the prices set were fair, and within the
confines of the law. Second, cut the pay of the unionized
workforce, which has already suffered thousands of
coronavirus illnesses and, at last count, at least 60 deaths.
If the price of packages is raised, who pays? The consumer
and small businesses, not just on packages sent by USPS, but
by every private delivery service. That is the reality of how
business works, and to deny it is not dealing with reality.
As USPS raises its prices, you can be assured that the
private delivery services will raise their prices.
Considering the present composition of Congress, the
provisions of the law regarding how union contracts are
negotiated ls not about to change.
With the pandemic, the USPS is needed more than ever
before. Small businesses and the average American rely on
delivery of mail six days a week. They need to get their
checks, their letters, and packages, on time.
The USPS needs help! There is a way to fix it!
The administration must stop holding the USPS hostage to
its own private agenda. Rural America and the inner city
population would suffer more than anyone else. The solutions
are clear. Let us just get it done.
Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, ``I'm writing to you today after having
skipped a day of my high blood pressure medication for the first
time.''
``I have not seen a Postal Service carrier in my neighborhood for a
week or more, not received mail for 10 days. The last couple pieces of
mail were 30 days late.''
``I am a small business owner. I am in a real bind. I usually ship
packages to customers. Switching to UPS or FedEx would be too
expensive. I would likely lose customers.''
These are just a few of the thousands of messages that my office has
received from constituents who have been caught in the crosshairs of
this administration's war on the U.S. Postal Service.
We are here today to deliver a message to this administration: Don't
mess with the USPS.
This vital public service is essential in our everyday lives. In a
pandemic, it is a lifeline.
These are the real consequences of this administration's ill-
conceived efficiency measures, which have disrupted postal service
across the country. Those consequences have made their way to the
doorsteps of seniors, veterans, people with disabilities, and countless
families and businesses, large and small.
As millions of Americans are expected to vote by mail, many for the
first time, we need to give Americans the peace of mind that their mail
will be processed swiftly. That is why I am
[[Page H4265]]
proud to support the Delivering for America Act.
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, I
want to solve every single one of those problems that she just laid
out. Those are absolutely bipartisan concerns. This bill solves none of
them.
Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona
(Mrs. Lesko), another member of the Rules Committee.
Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
``Nancy Pelosi Goes Politically Postal.'' That's the catchy title of
a recent op-ed written by The Wall Street Journal editorial board, and
that is the reason we are here today, for phony political theater to
once again bash President Trump just in time for the Sunday talk shows
and the Republican National Convention. And just like all the other
times, the media will lap it right up.
Wouldn't it be nice if we were here today on a Saturday voting on a
negotiated COVID relief package to help the American people that could
actually be signed into law? But sadly, instead, we are here talking
about a postal bill, one The Wall Street Journal editorial board called
a ``made-for-TV phony political crisis.'' Boy, did they get that right.
Let's review the facts.
A task force recommends that the U.S. Postal Service overhaul their
business model in order to return it to sustainability because expenses
have outpaced revenue for 13 straight years, and they lost $8.8 billion
in 2019 alone.
The new Postmaster General is unanimously selected by a bipartisan
Board of Governors, not President Trump. The Postmaster General starts
making some changes in an attempt to make the post office more
sustainable, as recommended by the task force--you know, similar to the
types of changes that were made under the Obama administration in the
past.
The Postmaster General worries that some States allow voters to
request mail-in ballots too close to the election day and is afraid
that there is not enough turnaround time for those ballots to get back
in time, so he sends a courtesy letter to those States, recommending
they tell voters to mail in their ballots early so they can get them in
time.
Guess what? Democrats freak out, blame Trump, say he is trying to
influence the election, even though Trump doesn't have control over the
Postmaster General, and run to the ever-so-willing media to spread a
new Trump conspiracy theory.
Seems insane but all too typical for the Trump-hating Democrats to
me.
But don't take my word for it, let's see what Stephen Kearney, a 33-
year veteran employee, former Treasurer, and Senior Vice President of
the U.S. Postal Service said: ``This conspiracy theory is the most far-
flung thing I think I have ever heard.''
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, let me just say again for the Record
because we hear this on the other side: Wouldn't it be nice if we were
here negotiating a larger package on a whole range of things. Well, we
actually passed something in the House called the HEROES Act. The
Senate has passed nothing. The reason why is because Republicans are
fighting with Republicans. They can't agree on what to do, so they have
done nothing. So, we are negotiating with an empty chair.
If my friends really want to help, they ought to pick up the phone,
and they ought to call Mitch McConnell and tell him to do something, to
actually do something.
Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut
(Ms. DeLauro).
Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, mail is an essential government service
and a critical lifeline for many, especially during this pandemic.
What have operational changes made to the postal system accomplished?
Parts of the country are having their mail delayed by up to a week or
more. This is harming veterans, seniors, and our rural communities.
What has the Postmaster General already done? Curtailed overtime;
restricted deliveries; eliminated sorting machines; in Hartford,
Connecticut, in the parking lot there is a dismantled machine; removed
mailboxes; prohibiting employees from making late mail deliveries,
directing them to leave mail undelivered at distribution centers
overnight; warned 46 States and the District of Columbia that it could
not guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will
arrive in time to be counted.
Yes, this is about our democracy, as well. This administration is
undermining a pillar of our democracy, voting for a partisan purpose.
Obstructing the Postal Service for political purposes is illegal. It is
illegal to interfere with the mail.
During this unprecedented time, we must be streamlining, not
sabotaging, voting by mail.
The administration wants to destroy the public's faith and trust in
the public service. No, the American people are not going to let you do
it. I might add, the Postal Service has a 90 percent favorability
rating. It is the most popular Federal agency. Would that we had a 90
percent favorability rating.
We must fight for this essential component of our democracy and of
people's lives. We will, through rain, shine, or sleet, or President
Donald Trump.
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Arkansas (Mr. Womack), the ranking member of one of the committees that
is near and dear to my heart, the ranking member of the Budget
Committee, a good friend, and a member of the freshman class of 2010.
Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend Rob Woodall for
yielding.
When I was a kid, I couldn't wait for Saturday morning. Saturday
morning in our house, my brothers and sisters, we would get up, and we
couldn't wait to watch our favorite cartoons.
Now, decades later, here I am again, on the floor of the House of
Representatives, watching a cartoon about the only outcome this debate
is going to have today: one of entertainment value, nothing
substantive.
The chairman of the Rules Committee called this a five-alarm fire.
Now that the Democratic Convention has concluded and the Republican
Convention is about to begin, we have a catastrophe.
It is not going to build infrastructure. It is not going to give aid
to people suffering from the pandemic. It is not going to fund the
government by October 1. It is not going to become law.
Just like the previous attempts, my friends on the other side of the
aisle have had to derail a duly-elected President. This, too, will
fail. I urge a ``no'' vote.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I am sad that the gentleman thinks this
is entertaining. We have veterans who are calling our offices whose
medications have been delayed getting to them. We have some people on
Social Security and on SSI who are worried that their checks are not
going to get to them. We have small businesses that are calling to
complain.
This is a crisis that this administration produced all on its own.
And whether it is designed, as some of us fear, to try to create more
chaos around the election--and by the way, this is what Donald Trump
said about the money that we have in this bill: ``They need that money
in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these
millions and millions of ballots.''
Did anybody ever think that they would see a President of the United
States who would publicly say that he doesn't want every vote to count?
This is outrageous, and I cannot believe that my friends on the other
side of the aisle, who I know are getting the same calls we are, are
totally fine with doing nothing.
{time} 1115
Well, maybe if some of my Republican friends would join with us, it
might send a message to the White House that they have to respond, they
have to do the right thing.
It is the complicity; it is the indifference that I just can't
understand given what is going on in this country right now.
So we have been complaining about this for weeks--this didn't just
happen this week, but for weeks--but it is now out of control, and we
have to do something.
Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California
(Ms. Matsui), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.
[[Page H4266]]
Ms. MATSUI. Madam Speaker, over the past few weeks, we have seen the
reports of decommissioned sorting machines, removal of postboxes, and
the cutting back of hours for the U.S. Postal Service employees.
In my district of Sacramento, I have never seen such an outcry, an
outrage amongst my neighbors and constituents.
This is serious business. We are feeling the effects of delayed mail
delivery and seeing the real-life consequences of these operational
changes: Financial documents are late; prescriptions are stuck in
transit; and we worry about our future ballots being counted.
That is why this administration's attacks have alarmed so many
Americans. We recognize it is about more than just getting letters from
A to B. It is about the fabric of our democracy.
The Postmaster General has made his political preferences and
business interests no secret. The U.S. Postal Service should not be
manipulated as a political or business tool.
Hundreds of millions of Americans across this country rely on the
Postal Service for lifesaving medications, Social Security benefits,
paychecks, and mail-in ballots. The Delivering for America Act will
help ensure that those services continue as needed.
This bill takes critical steps to halt the damage being done, while
providing $25 billion to put the Postal Service back on track.
While the Postmaster has recently claimed that he will halt
operational changes until after the election, he has also stated he has
no intention of recommissioning sorting machines and postboxes that
have already been shuttered. The damage has already been done, and it
is unacceptable.
We must pass the Delivering for America Act to provide emergency
funding and put protections in place to support reliable mail delivery
for all Americans.
As I said, this is serious business. The post office is important for
the fabric of America.
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, though this bill is going nowhere, if we
defeat the previous question this morning, I will offer an amendment to
take up three bills that are partnership bills that can go through the
Senate to the President's desk and make a real difference for the
American people, dealing with important issues like healthcare, like
relief for folks suffering from the COVID economic crisis, and our law
enforcement reform activities.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my
amendment in the Record immediately prior to the vote on the previous
question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Georgia?
There was no objection.
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Burgess) to speak on one of those provisions.
Mr. BURGESS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
There is a sudden sense of urgency to address the financial stability
of the Postal Service, but I would simply ask the body: Where was the
sense of urgency from our House Democratic leadership at the start of
the pandemic?
Look, I recognized in January this deal over in China was a bad deal,
a novel virus, biological behavior not known, not worked out.
The Postal Service's problems did not surface this week. They have
been going on for years. But the Postal Service will not go bankrupt
tomorrow, and yet we have been called back here to vote on an issue
that, quite frankly, is not going to get solved from today's
activities.
But I called on the Committee on Energy and Commerce last February to
do hearings on this novel coronavirus. My requests were ignored and
then subsequently dismissed because we had other important work to do:
horse racing, flavored tobacco, ticket stubs--any number of things--
other than work on the novel coronavirus.
But we could have provided support in the form of funding for
vaccines and testing and more. We have done some of that in the short-
term sense, but we could continue to support our Nation's pandemic
response in additional ways, which is why I have introduced legislation
that aligns with the legislation already existing in the Senate, where
we could come together and provide our country with some of the
critical resources necessary to fight this novel coronavirus.
Unfortunately, the House Democratic leadership does not acknowledge
or seem even to be curious as to whether or not they are up to the
task.
So this legislation provides $29 billion for the Public Health and
Social Services Emergency Fund to develop additional medical
countermeasures and vaccines. A safe and effective vaccine is the
strongest arrow in our quiver to help society return to normal.
Importantly, the bill would provide $2 billion for the Strategic
National Stockpile and $2 billion for the Biomedical Advanced Research
and Development Authority for use in developing medical
countermeasures.
But you have to ask yourself: The business plan as promulgated by the
Speaker of this body, why is it antithetical to that development? Could
it be because the nominee of their party this week in a very important
speech promised the American people ``no miracle is coming''? Is that
because you are going to cut off the funding for BARDA? for the
Strategic National Stockpile? for research on vaccines?
Look, there are commonsense, bipartisan ways to help our Nation and
help our Nation respond to the coronavirus, but House Democratic
leadership has turned their backs on the needs of America.
Madam Speaker, I urge Members to vote against the previous question.
Allow us to debate and pass this measure. It is of critical urgency.
Indeed, a miracle could be coming.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I insert in the Record a CNBC article,
entitled, ``Patients Say Post Office Slowdown Is Delaying Delivery of
Lifesaving Medications.''
Patients Say Post Office Slowdown is Delaying Delivery of Life-Saving
Medications
(By Christina Farr)
The U.S. Postal Service has become a political
battleground, and has experienced delays after Postmaster
General Louis DeJoy slashed overtime.
Many patients are experiencing delays receiving life-saving
medications and are sharing their experiences online via
hashtags like #USPSMeds.
Experts say the situation could escalate, despite
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's promise to suspend changes
to the Postal Service.
Nathan Geissel, who lives in rural Oregon, has been waiting
more than nine days for a lifesaving medication to arrive in
the mail. As far as he knows, it's stuck in a fulfillment
center.
Geissel's doctor prescribed the medicine two years ago to
prevent blood clots. He's never experienced delays before.
The U.S. Postal Service has become a political battleground
after President Trump said he opposes additional funding
because he doesn't support universal mail-in voting.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump supporter, reportedly
ordered recent cost-cutting measures, slashing overtime and
curbing late delivery. It has created significant delays in
mail deliveries, according to mail worker advocates and
others.
Americans are sharing stories about medication delays with
the hashtag #USPSMeds. Many are veterans who have reported
weeks-long delays. Some are seniors who instead have to visit
a pharmacy, putting them at higher risk of exposure to Covid-
19.
Geissel chose mail-order for the convenience--the nearest
pharmacy is 20 minutes away--and the affordability. His
insurance company covers more of the cost of the medication
when it's delivered by the U.S. postal service. Geissel has
to pay a $135 copay for a months supply if he instead picks
it up at a retail pharmacy.
``Thankfully, a local pharmacist approved two more weeks of
medication with my health plan that I could pick up as an
emergency,'' said Geissel. ``I work in health care, so I know
the system, but I can't imagine what it must be like for an
elderly patient who doesn't have that same access.''
``I'm worried,'' said Liz Austin by phone. Her mother,
Barbara, is sick with cystic fibrosis, a progressive disease
that causes lung infections and limits her ability to
breathe. ``Covid-19 is primarily a respiratory disease, so my
mother relies on the mail to get her prescriptions as safely
as possible.''
Her medicine was so late that her husband had to risk
visiting a pharmacy.
After lawsuits from more than 20 state attorneys general
and a call to testify before Congress, DeJoy on Tuesday said
he's suspending operational changes until after the November
election.
Some experts are concerned that the delays will snowball.
``There's an exponential factor to this,'' said John
McHugh, a former congressman who heads up the Package
Coalition, an alliance that aims to preserve affordable
postal package delivery services. Members of the
[[Page H4267]]
Package Coalition include Amazon, eBay, and Cigna's Express
Scripts. ``Once you are behind, what happens next is you get
further behind and then further behind.''
The pandemic has strained the mail-order medication system
as more people are opt to receive prescriptions at home.
Those with pre-existing conditions are at greater risk for
hospitalization if they get Covid-19.
``Data show an increase in prescription drugs dispensed
through mail-service pharmacy during the pandemic,'' said a
spokesperson from PCMA, a national association representing
pharmacy benefits managers, which negotiate prescription drug
costs on behalf of insurers.
Online pharmacy Honeybee Health said about 20% of patients
who order delivery via first-class mail have experienced
delays so far.
``The situation is fluid but it's clear from our customer
service team that an usually high number of patients are
receiving their medication far later than expected--and in
some cases, not receiving it at all. These delays are
troubling for everyone, but for patients who rely on
medication to live, it's especially dangerous,'' said Dr.
Jessica Nouhavandi, co-founder and lead pharmacist for
Honeybee Health, which delivers generic medications via USPS.
Umar Afridi, founder of TruePill, a company that provides
pharmacy services to telemedicine companies, said he
``estimates that about 90 percent'' of prescription drugs his
company delivers via mail run through the postal service.
``We tend to use UPS and FedEx more for time-sensitive and
expensive drugs,'' he said. ``USPS is often the lowest cost
and they have the biggest reach.''
Afridi said he hasn't yet heard about delays but knows
there are service-level disruptions, including pickups not
happening on time.
Pharmacy benefits managers are more optimistic. Express
Scripts, a major pharmacy benefit manager, said it was ``not
experiencing unusual delays.'' OptumRX (owned by UnitedHealth
Group) declined to discuss delays. It said it's working with
all major carriers ``to help ensure timely shipments of home
delivery prescriptions.''
Some doctors are concerned for their low-income and elderly
patients. Dr. Lakshman Swamy, a Boston-based pulmonologist
and critical care doctor, says the situation could be
disastrous for asthma patients who rely on Medicaid or don't
have insurance. These patients might not be able to negotiate
an emergency supply.
Swamy, who also has asthma, said it's common for patients
with chronic respiratory conditions to rely on mail-order
medications. ``You can do rescue therapies for a while, but
the strong medications will wear off,'' he said. ``Once you
don't get the medications you need, you can quickly fall off
the wagon and end up hospitalized.''
``Any additional strain will have an impact on patients,''
he said. ``It's inevitable.''
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Madam Speaker, I don't know for certain that the Senate will take
this bill up, but I fervently hope that they will, because I sure as
hell know that we are doing the right thing here in the House.
Madam Speaker, I would also like to just point out, because I have
heard these questions raised about the $25 billion in this bill for the
Postal Service: Why are we providing that amount?
Madam Speaker, because that is what the USPS Board of Governors
recommended, and this Board is made up of 100 percent of Donald Trump's
appointees. So, you know, this is not a number that Democrats made up.
It is what his Republican Board of the USPS came up with. So that is
why that number is there.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Chabot), the ranking member of the Small Business Committee
that has made such a difference for so many Americans, in support of
the previous question and legislation that we could bring to the floor
that would make a difference to the American people.
Mr. CHABOT. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that the Paycheck Protection Program
has produced impressive results. All across America, PPP loans have
supported over 50 million jobs. That is 50 million people who can
continue to support themselves and their loved ones. In Ohio's First
Congressional District, for example, which I have the honor of
representing, the program helped over 200,000 people to stay on the
payroll and support their families.
Despite this success, there are small businesses that still need our
help. According to a July 27 NFIB survey, almost half of small business
borrowers predict that they will need additional capital within the
next 6 months.
As ranking member of the House Small Business Committee, I have
pushed for targeted bipartisan solutions to make sure that our Nation's
smallest firms have a chance to survive, and this Congress has acted.
Now it needs to do so again to help those small businesses and their
employees.
Unfortunately, the top leadership on the other side of the aisle
apparently doesn't feel the urgency to do so and allow a vote on
additional help for those small businesses that need it so much.
Let me be clear: Every day that goes by without action jeopardizes
America's 30 million small businesses and their employees.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support reopening the Paycheck
Protection Program through December 31 and allow businesses that have
suffered revenue declines to apply for a second loan.
Madam Speaker, we owe it to America's small businesses to work
together for a solution. We ought to be voting on that today.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Madam Speaker, it is interesting to hear my friend talk about the
extension of PPP when he voted against that in the HEROES Act when it
came before the full House. Luckily, it passed and it is over in the
Senate. We are waiting for Mitch McConnell to do something.
But I love my friends on the other side of the aisle who come up with
all these ideas right now. Most of them were in the HEROES Act.
But if these are so important, where is Mitch McConnell? Where is the
United States Senate? They went on vacation. They are gone.
We are here because we have a crisis. We have people who can't get
their medications, who can't get their benefit checks. We have a crisis
where we have a President who is trying to undermine our elections. So
we are here doing our work.
Where is Mitch McConnell? Where is the Senate? How about picking up
the phone and calling them to come back and do something for the
American people?
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, again, if we defeat the previous
question, we will bring much-needed legislation to the floor.
Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr.
Stauber), a rising star here in the Republican Conference, to talk
about that.
Mr. STAUBER. Madam Speaker, it has been 22 days since the last time
this body has met, and in those 22 days that the Speaker has refused to
work on real relief packages, people have lost their jobs, small
businesses have closed, and Main Streets have suffered. The American
people were left with the question: Where are our leaders?
I have begged, the President has begged, and the Senate has begged:
Please call the House back into session to work on a bill to help
suffering Americans.
Now we are back in Washington for less than 12 hours. It is
embarrassing that, while we could be working on vaccine funding, saving
small businesses, and justice reform, the Speaker will gavel us out and
Americans will once again be wondering: Where are our leaders?
I introduced legislation that will fund better training for police
officers, increase the number of body cameras, and fund important
grants to police departments that help with community policing, which
builds trust and lasting relationships in the communities they serve.
It has been 89 days since George Floyd's tragic death, and in those
89 days, Senator Tim Scott and I have put forth legislation to fix and
improve our policing. We have begged Democrat leadership to come to the
table and address this issue that Americans and our communities have
asked for.
Yet, what do we get? Twelve hours in Washington, D.C., and no action
on vaccine funding, no action on small business relief, and no action
on police reform.
Madam Speaker, I urge defeat of the previous question so we can
consider
[[Page H4268]]
this important bill and get Congress back to work, because a Congress
at work is America at work.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
Madam Speaker, the gentleman asked: Where are the leaders? We are
here. We are doing our job. We are responding to a crisis.
Where is Mitch McConnell? On vacation.
Where is the President? Tweeting more insults.
But we are here doing our job to help deal with this postal crisis,
and we also did our job when we passed the HEROES Act.
Where is Mitch McConnell? On vacation.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I would like to share with my friend, the
chairman, that I have no further speakers remaining, and I am prepared
to close when he is.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close.
{time} 1130
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I don't know how many more times I will be on the
House floor between now and the end of the year. It is a great honor I
have to serve with the chairman of the Rules Committee, Mr. McGovern of
Massachusetts. I think all the time about all the things we could do
together; and, candidly, we have done a lot of great things together.
This body, when it acts together, does amazing things.
But an unfortunate thing has happened in politics these days, Madam
Speaker. We talk more about the bills that we pass than the changes
that we make. My friend from Massachusetts has talked time and time
again about a unilaterally drafted bill passed by this House in the
spring that purports to address families in need, but that included no
Republican input, no partnership, had a veto message from the
President, and had no chance of getting through the Senate.
We are here on exactly that same exercise today with this
manufactured Postal Service bill. The Postal Service has the money that
it needs. I will just tell my friends that President Trump won the
mail-in vote in the great State of Georgia. That year I won the mail-in
vote 2-1. There is absolutely no effort at voter suppression here. As
my friend from Connecticut pointed out earlier, that is illegal. That
is off the table.
We are talking about, Is there enough money to fund the Postal
Service or not?
My friend from Massachusetts references a supervisor's report from
the spring when they thought mail delivery was going to go down in
volume. In fact, it has gone up in volume. Revenues are higher than
they expected. If the Postal Service faces a revenue shortfall, I
commit to my colleagues we will be there together arm in arm to make
that happen. But today, when the Postal Service is sitting on $15
billion in cash and an unused $10 billion line of credit, a blank check
of another $25 billion does not solve any of the challenges that you
and I know exist or solve any of the problems that all of our
constituents have.
Madam Speaker, the frustration you hear from my colleagues on this
side of the aisle is that we are back in an emergency session working
on language that is going nowhere, that will help no one. We can pound
on our chests all we like about all the wonderful things that we
think--unilaterally by themselves, without any bipartisan input--
Democrats crafted and put in this bill. But we all know from year upon
year upon year of painful experience, the only things that get done in
this town get done together. In a divided government you cannot bully
your way to success, Madam Speaker, you have to partner your way to
success.
I know my friend from Massachusetts believes that. That is the kind
of leadership style he brings to the committee on which I have the
honor of serving. I understand my friends have a job to do today. They
need to pass this bill. They are going to do it. It is not going to go
anywhere, but they are going to do it.
Madam Speaker, defeat the previous question with me today. Let's move
PPP extension, let's move vaccine funding, let's move law enforcement
reform, and let's do the political exercise that you brought us here to
do. But let's do these things that matter as well.
Madam Speaker, I urge defeat of the previous question, and if not
that, defeat of the rule.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I have great respect for my colleagues on the other
side of the aisle which makes me especially sad to hear some of the
comments that we heard here today.
This is a crisis that we are currently facing. We are getting calls
from veterans whose medications are being delayed in the mail. We are
getting calls from others whose essential benefits are being delayed in
the mail. People rely on this stuff. It is important.
Madam Speaker, you have heard the testimonies that have been
recounted here on our side of the aisle.
This is an emergency, and on top of that, we have a President who
does not want every vote counted in the upcoming election because he
believes that if we do count every vote, he will lose.
We are in the middle of a pandemic. More and more people are going to
be voting by mail, and this President, rather than trying to make it
easier for people to vote and to have their voices be counted, is
trying to make it more difficult.
The current Postmaster General is not interested in reforming the
Post Office. He is interested in dismantling it. That is what he has
been doing.
The bill that is before us is about more than money, I would say to
my colleague from Georgia. It is about undoing all the damage that the
current Postmaster has put into place that is resulting in all these
delays, all this confusion, and all this chaos. Come on. This is
serious business.
I am going to close with this. History is not going to look well on
those who just went along to get along with this President while he has
done some things that would have been unthinkable in any other
administration, Democrat or Republican. The complicity and the
indifference are shocking to me. I can't believe it sometimes when I
hear people defend the indefensible.
What the President is doing with the Postal Service is indefensible,
and everybody needs to be counted on this issue. I ask my Democratic
colleagues and I ask my Republican colleagues to support this bill. It
is the right thing to do for your constituents. Even if the man in the
White House doesn't want it, it is the right thing to do. It is about
time people started doing what is right for the people of this country.
Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the previous
question.
The material previously referred to by Mr. Woodall is as follows:
Amendment to House Resolution 1092
At the end of the resolution, add the following:
Sec. 2. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the
House shall resolve into the Committee of the Whole House on
the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R.
8086) to provide additional appropriations for the public
health and social services emergency fund, and for other
purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed
with. All points of order against consideration of the bill
are waived. Clause 2(e) of rule XXI shall not apply during
consideration of the bill. General debate shall be confined
to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and
controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the
Committee on Appropriations. After general debate the bill
shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule.
All points of order against provisions in the bill are
waived. When the committee rises and reports the bill back to
the House with a recommendation that the bill do pass, the
previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill
and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening
motion except one motion to recommit with or without
instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports
that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the
next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the
third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV,
resolve into the Committee of the Who further consideration
of the bill.
Sec. 3. Immediately after disposition of H.R. 8086, the
House shall resolve into the Committee of the Whole House on
the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R.
8087) to amend the Small Business Act and the CARES Act to
establish a program for second draw loans and make other
modifications to the paycheck protection program, and for
other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be
dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of
the
[[Page H4269]]
bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill
and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled
by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on
Small Business. After general debate the bill shall be
considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. All
points of order against provisions in the bill are waived.
When the committee rises and reports the bill back to the
House with a recommendation that the bill do pass, the
previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill
and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening
motion except one motion to recommit with or without
instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports
that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the
next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the
third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV,
resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further
consideration of the bill.
Sec. 4. Immediately after disposition of H.R. 8087, the
House shall resolve into the Committee of the Whole House on
the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R.
8088} to provide funding to law enforcement agencies, and for
other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be
dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of
the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the
bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and
controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the
Committee on the Judiciary. After general debate the bill
shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule.
All points of order against provisions in the bill are
waived. When the committee rises and reports the bill back to
the House with a recommendation that the bill do pass, the
previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill
and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening
motion except one motion to recommit with or without
instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports
that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the
next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the
third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV,
resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further
consideration of the bill.
Sec. 5. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the
consideration of H.R. 8086, H.R. 8087, and H.R. 8088.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and
I move the previous question on the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous
question.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 3 of House Resolution
965, the yeas and nays are ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 230,
nays 171, not voting 29, as follows:
[Roll No. 179]
YEAS--230
Adams
Aguilar
Allred
Axne
Barragan
Bass
Beatty
Bera
Beyer
Bishop (GA)
Blumenauer
Blunt Rochester
Bonamici
Boyle, Brendan F.
Brindisi
Brown (MD)
Brownley (CA)
Bustos
Butterfield
Carbajal
Cardenas
Carson (IN)
Cartwright
Case
Casten (IL)
Castor (FL)
Castro (TX)
Chu, Judy
Cicilline
Cisneros
Clark (MA)
Clarke (NY)
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Connolly
Cooper
Correa
Costa
Courtney
Cox (CA)
Craig
Crist
Crow
Cuellar
Cunningham
Davids (KS)
Davis (CA)
Davis, Danny K.
Dean
DeFazio
DeGette
DeLauro
DelBene
Delgado
Demings
DeSaulnier
Deutch
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle, Michael F.
Engel
Escobar
Eshoo
Espaillat
Evans
Finkenauer
Fletcher
Foster
Frankel
Fudge
Gallego
Garamendi
Garcia (IL)
Garcia (TX)
Golden
Gomez
Gonzalez (TX)
Gottheimer
Green, Al (TX)
Grijalva
Haaland
Harder (CA)
Hastings
Hayes
Heck
Higgins (NY)
Himes
Horn, Kendra S.
Horsford
Houlahan
Hoyer
Huffman
Jackson Lee
Jayapal
Jeffries
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (TX)
Kaptur
Keating
Kelly (IL)
Kennedy
Khanna
Kildee
Kilmer
Kim
Kind
Kirkpatrick
Krishnamoorthi
Kuster (NH)
Lamb
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lawrence
Lawson (FL)
Lee (CA)
Lee (NV)
Levin (CA)
Levin (MI)
Lieu, Ted
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren
Lowenthal
Lowey
Lujan
Luria
Lynch
Malinowski
Maloney, Carolyn B.
Maloney, Sean
Matsui
McAdams
McBath
McCollum
McEachin
McGovern
McNerney
Meeks
Meng
Mfume
Moore
Morelle
Moulton
Mucarsel-Powell
Murphy (FL)
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Neguse
Norcross
O'Halleran
Ocasio-Cortez
Omar
Pallone
Panetta
Pappas
Pascrell
Payne
Perlmutter
Peters
Peterson
Phillips
Pingree
Pocan
Porter
Pressley
Price (NC)
Quigley
Raskin
Rice (NY)
Richmond
Rose (NY)
Rouda
Roybal-Allard
Ruiz
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan
Sanchez
Sarbanes
Scanlon
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schneider
Schrader
Schrier
Scott (VA)
Scott, David
Serrano
Sewell (AL)
Shalala
Sherman
Sherrill
Sires
Slotkin
Smith (WA)
Soto
Spanberger
Speier
Stanton
Stevens
Suozzi
Swalwell (CA)
Takano
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Titus
Tlaib
Tonko
Torres (CA)
Torres Small (NM)
Trahan
Trone
Underwood
Vargas
Veasey
Vela
Velazquez
Visclosky
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson Coleman
Welch
Wexton
Wild
Wilson (FL)
Yarmuth
NAYS--171
Abraham
Allen
Amash
Armstrong
Arrington
Babin
Bacon
Baird
Balderson
Barr
Bergman
Biggs
Bilirakis
Bishop (NC)
Bishop (UT)
Bost
Brady
Brooks (AL)
Buchanan
Buck
Bucshon
Budd
Burchett
Burgess
Byrne
Calvert
Carter (GA)
Carter (TX)
Chabot
Cheney
Cline
Cloud
Cole
Comer
Conaway
Crawford
Crenshaw
Curtis
Davidson (OH)
Davis, Rodney
Duncan
Dunn
Emmer
Estes
Ferguson
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Fortenberry
Foxx (NC)
Fulcher
Gaetz
Gallagher
Garcia (CA)
Gianforte
Gibbs
Gohmert
Gonzalez (OH)
Gooden
Gosar
Graves (LA)
Graves (MO)
Green (TN)
Griffith
Grothman
Guest
Guthrie
Hagedorn
Harris
Hartzler
Hern, Kevin
Herrera Beutler
Hice (GA)
Hill (AR)
Hollingsworth
Hudson
Huizenga
Hurd (TX)
Jacobs
Johnson (OH)
Johnson (SD)
Jordan
Joyce (OH)
Joyce (PA)
Katko
Keller
Kelly (MS)
King (NY)
Kinzinger
Kustoff (TN)
LaHood
LaMalfa
Lamborn
Latta
Lesko
Long
Loudermilk
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Marshall
Massie
Mast
McCarthy
McCaul
McClintock
McKinley
Miller
Mitchell
Moolenaar
Mooney (WV)
Mullin
Murphy (NC)
Newhouse
Norman
Nunes
Palazzo
Palmer
Pence
Perry
Posey
Reed
Reschenthaler
Rice (SC)
Riggleman
Roby
Rodgers (WA)
Roe, David P.
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rooney (FL)
Rose, John W.
Rouzer
Rutherford
Scalise
Schweikert
Scott, Austin
Sensenbrenner
Simpson
Smith (MO)
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smucker
Stauber
Stefanik
Steil
Stivers
Taylor
Thompson (PA)
Tiffany
Tipton
Turner
Upton
Van Drew
Wagner
Walberg
Walker
Walorski
Waltz
Watkins
Weber (TX)
Webster (FL)
Wenstrup
Westerman
Williams
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Womack
Woodall
Wright
Yoho
Young
Zeldin
NOT VOTING--29
Aderholt
Amodei
Banks
Brooks (IN)
Collins (GA)
Cook
DesJarlais
Diaz-Balart
Flores
Gabbard
Granger
Graves (GA)
Higgins (LA)
Holding
Johnson (LA)
Kelly (PA)
King (IA)
Marchant
McHenry
Meuser
Olson
Roy
Shimkus
Spano
Steube
Stewart
Thornberry
Timmons
Walden
{time} 1235
So the previous question was ordered.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
MEMBERS RECORDED PURSUANT TO HOUSE RESOLUTION 965, 116TH CONGRESS
Axne (Raskin)
Barragan (Beyer)
Bera (Aguilar)
Blumenauer (Beyer)
Bonamici (Raskin)
Brownley (CA) (Clark (MA))
Cardenas (Gomez)
Case (Cartwright)
Clay (Davids (KS))
Costa (Cooper)
Davis (CA) (Wild)
DeGette (Blunt Rochester)
DelBene (Heck)
DeSaulnier (Matsui)
Doggett (Raskin)
Engel (Pallone)
Escobar (Garcia (TX))
Foster (Beyer)
Frankel (Clark (MA))
Garamendi (Sherman)
Gonzalez (TX) (Gomez)
Grijalva (Garcia (IL))
Hastings (Wasserman Schultz)
Horsford (Kildee)
Huffman (Kildee)
Jayapal (Raskin)
Johnson (TX) (Jeffries)
Kennedy (Deutch)
Khanna (Gomez)
Kind (Beyer)
Kirkpatrick (Gallego)
Kuster (NH) (Clark (MA))
Lawson (FL) (Evans)
Lieu, Ted (Beyer)
Lipinski (Cooper)
Lofgren (Jeffries)
Lowenthal (Beyer)
Lowey (Tonko)
McNerney (Raskin)
Meng (Clark (MA))
Moore (Beyer)
Mucarsel-Powell (Wasserman Schultz)
Nadler (Jeffries)
Napolitano (Correa)
Omar (Pressley)
Panetta (Kildee)
Pascrell (Pallone)
Payne (Wasserman Schultz)
Peters (Rice (NY))
Peterson (Vela)
Pingree (Clark (MA))
Porter (Wexton)
Price (NC) (Butterfield)
Rooney (FL) (Beyer)
Roybal-Allard (McCollum)
Ruiz (Aguilar)
Rush (Underwood)
Sanchez (Aguilar)
Schakowsky (Kelly (IL))
Schneider (Houlahan)
Serrano (Jeffries)
Sires (Pallone)
Speier (Scanlon)
Thompson (CA) (Kildee)
Titus (Connolly)
Visclosky (Raskin)
Watson Coleman (Pallone)
Welch (McGovern)
Wilson (FL) (Hayes)
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cuellar). The question is on the
resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
[[Page H4270]]
MR. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 3 of House Resolution
965, the yeas and nays are ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 230,
nays 171, not voting 29, as follows:
[Roll No. 180]
YEAS--230
Adams
Aguilar
Allred
Axne
Barragan
Bass
Beatty
Bera
Beyer
Bishop (GA)
Blumenauer
Blunt Rochester
Bonamici
Boyle, Brendan F.
Brindisi
Brown (MD)
Brownley (CA)
Bustos
Butterfield
Carbajal
Cardenas
Carson (IN)
Cartwright
Case
Casten (IL)
Castor (FL)
Castro (TX)
Chu, Judy
Cicilline
Cisneros
Clark (MA)
Clarke (NY)
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Connolly
Cooper
Correa
Costa
Courtney
Cox (CA)
Craig
Crist
Crow
Cuellar
Cunningham
Davids (KS)
Davis (CA)
Davis, Danny K.
Dean
DeFazio
DeGette
DeLauro
DelBene
Delgado
Demings
DeSaulnier
Deutch
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle, Michael F.
Engel
Escobar
Eshoo
Espaillat
Evans
Finkenauer
Fletcher
Foster
Frankel
Fudge
Gallego
Garamendi
Garcia (IL)
Garcia (TX)
Golden
Gomez
Gonzalez (TX)
Gottheimer
Green, Al (TX)
Grijalva
Haaland
Harder (CA)
Hastings
Hayes
Heck
Higgins (NY)
Himes
Horn, Kendra S.
Horsford
Houlahan
Hoyer
Huffman
Jackson Lee
Jayapal
Jeffries
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (TX)
Kaptur
Keating
Kelly (IL)
Kennedy
Khanna
Kildee
Kilmer
Kim
Kind
Kirkpatrick
Krishnamoorthi
Kuster (NH)
Lamb
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lawrence
Lawson (FL)
Lee (CA)
Lee (NV)
Levin (CA)
Levin (MI)
Lieu, Ted
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren
Lowenthal
Lowey
Lujan
Luria
Lynch
Malinowski
Maloney, Carolyn B.
Maloney, Sean
Matsui
McAdams
McBath
McCollum
McEachin
McGovern
McNerney
Meeks
Meng
Mfume
Moore
Morelle
Moulton
Mucarsel-Powell
Murphy (FL)
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Neguse
Norcross
O'Halleran
Ocasio-Cortez
Omar
Pallone
Panetta
Pappas
Pascrell
Payne
Perlmutter
Peters
Peterson
Phillips
Pingree
Pocan
Porter
Pressley
Price (NC)
Quigley
Raskin
Rice (NY)
Richmond
Rose (NY)
Rouda
Roybal-Allard
Ruiz
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan
Sanchez
Sarbanes
Scanlon
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schneider
Schrader
Schrier
Scott (VA)
Scott, David
Serrano
Sewell (AL)
Shalala
Sherman
Sherrill
Sires
Slotkin
Smith (WA)
Soto
Spanberger
Speier
Stanton
Stevens
Suozzi
Swalwell (CA)
Takano
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Titus
Tlaib
Tonko
Torres (CA)
Torres Small (NM)
Trahan
Trone
Underwood
Vargas
Veasey
Vela
Velazquez
Visclosky
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson Coleman
Welch
Wexton
Wild
Wilson (FL)
Yarmuth
NAYS--171
Abraham
Allen
Amash
Armstrong
Arrington
Babin
Bacon
Baird
Balderson
Barr
Bergman
Biggs
Bilirakis
Bishop (NC)
Bishop (UT)
Bost
Brady
Brooks (AL)
Buchanan
Buck
Bucshon
Budd
Burchett
Burgess
Byrne
Calvert
Carter (GA)
Carter (TX)
Chabot
Cheney
Cline
Cloud
Cole
Comer
Conaway
Crawford
Crenshaw
Curtis
Davidson (OH)
Davis, Rodney
DesJarlais
Duncan
Dunn
Emmer
Estes
Ferguson
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Fortenberry
Foxx (NC)
Fulcher
Gaetz
Gallagher
Garcia (CA)
Gianforte
Gibbs
Gohmert
Gonzalez (OH)
Gooden
Gosar
Graves (LA)
Graves (MO)
Green (TN)
Griffith
Grothman
Guest
Guthrie
Hagedorn
Harris
Hartzler
Hern, Kevin
Herrera Beutler
Hice (GA)
Hill (AR)
Hollingsworth
Hudson
Huizenga
Hurd (TX)
Jacobs
Johnson (OH)
Johnson (SD)
Jordan
Joyce (PA)
Katko
Keller
Kelly (MS)
King (NY)
Kinzinger
Kustoff (TN)
LaHood
LaMalfa
Lamborn
Latta
Lesko
Long
Loudermilk
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Marshall
Massie
Mast
McCarthy
McCaul
McClintock
McKinley
Miller
Mitchell
Moolenaar
Mooney (WV)
Mullin
Murphy (NC)
Newhouse
Norman
Nunes
Palazzo
Palmer
Pence
Perry
Posey
Reed
Reschenthaler
Rice (SC)
Riggleman
Roby
Rodgers (WA)
Roe, David P.
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rooney (FL)
Rose, John W.
Rouzer
Rutherford
Scalise
Schweikert
Scott, Austin
Sensenbrenner
Simpson
Smith (MO)
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smucker
Stauber
Stefanik
Steil
Stivers
Taylor
Thompson (PA)
Tiffany
Tipton
Turner
Upton
Van Drew
Wagner
Walberg
Walker
Walorski
Waltz
Watkins
Weber (TX)
Webster (FL)
Wenstrup
Westerman
Williams
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Womack
Woodall
Wright
Yoho
Young
Zeldin
NOT VOTING--29
Aderholt
Amodei
Banks
Brooks (IN)
Collins (GA)
Cook
Diaz-Balart
Flores
Gabbard
Granger
Graves (GA)
Higgins (LA)
Holding
Johnson (LA)
Joyce (OH)
Kelly (PA)
King (IA)
Marchant
McHenry
Meuser
Olson
Roy
Shimkus
Spano
Steube
Stewart
Thornberry
Timmons
Walden
{time} 1317
Mrs. MILLER and Mr. VAN DREW changed their vote from ``yea'' to
``nay.''
So the resolution was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
MEMBERS RECORDED PURSUANT TO HOUSE RESOLUTION 965, 116TH CONGRESS
Axne (Raskin)
Barragan (Beyer)
Bera (Aguilar)
Blumenauer (Beyer)
Bonamici (Raskin)
Brownley (CA) (Clark (MA))
Cardenas (Gomez)
Case (Cartwright)
Clay (Davids (KS))
Costa (Cooper)
Davis (CA) (Wild)
DeGette (Blunt Rochester)
DelBene (Heck)
DeSaulnier (Matsui)
Doggett (Raskin)
Engel (Pallone)
Escobar (Garcia (TX))
Foster (Beyer)
Frankel (Clark (MA))
Garamendi (Sherman)
Gonzalez (TX) (Gomez)
Grijalva (Garcia (IL))
Hastings (Wasserman Schultz)
Horsford (Kildee)
Huffman (Kildee)
Jayapal (Raskin)
Johnson (TX) (Jeffries)
Kennedy (Deutch)
Khanna (Gomez)
Kind (Beyer)
Kirkpatrick (Gallego)
Kuster (NH) (Clark (MA))
Lawson (FL) (Evans)
Lieu, Ted (Beyer)
Lipinski (Cooper)
Lofgren (Jeffries)
Lowenthal (Beyer)
Lowey (Tonko)
McNerney (Raskin)
Meng (Clark (MA))
Moore (Beyer)
Mucarsel-Powell (Wasserman Schultz)
Nadler (Jeffries)
Napolitano (Correa)
Omar (Pressley)
Panetta (Kildee)
Pascrell (Pallone)
Payne (Wasserman Schultz)
Peters (Rice (NY))
Peterson (Vela)
Pingree (Clark (MA))
Porter (Wexton)
Price (NC) (Butterfield)
Rooney (FL) (Beyer)
Roybal-Allard (McCollum)
Ruiz (Aguilar)
Rush (Underwood)
Sanchez (Aguilar)
Schakowsky (Kelly (IL))
Schneider (Houlahan)
Serrano (Jeffries)
Sires (Pallone)
Speier (Scanlon)
Thompson (CA) (Kildee)
Titus (Connolly)
Visclosky (Raskin)
Watson Coleman (Pallone)
Welch (McGovern)
Wilson (FL) (Hayes)
____________________