It is a presidential campaign issue that no one would have seen coming a year ago, but House Democrats under the leadership of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are demanding additional funding for the U.S. Postal Service.
Their reason: The USPS is not equipped to handle the potential onslaught of vote-by-mail ballots coming this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Saks), the issue is “fabricated,” and the numbers back that up.
He weighed in during an appearance on this week’s broadcast of Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal.”
“It’s fabricated,” Rogers said. “The day before I voted for the Postal Service legislation — against it — I stopped by my local post office just to pick up a package. And, the guy waiting on me said, ‘I’ve been working for the postal service for nearly 40 years.’ He said we started getting rid of those bins that they’re talking about — those sorting bins — two decades ago. He said the ones we have left are not being used. This is nonsense that they’re talking about — this modernization effort by the postmaster. It isn’t any way associated with the general election. But that’s the way the Democrats have framed everything — everything that Donald Trump does is wrong. And everything he will do for the next five years is going to be wrong, because he’s going to be reelected and their heads are going to explode.”
Host Don Dailey then asked the congressman if he has confidence in the USPS to handle an increased number of mail-in ballots this November.
“Absolutely,” he replied. “And it’s not that big of volume. Here’s the way to keep it in mind, and I’m glad you asked that question — the Postal Service handles 471 million pieces of mail a day, each day — almost a half a billion pieces each day. Assuming 150 million people vote with mail-in ballots, that will be about 25% of what they handle a day. And it would be spread over a couple of weeks. This is in no way a heavy lift for them, and in fact, the postmaster under Obama has come out and said that — that this is a non-issue.”
Rogers reminded viewers the Constitution leaves voting up to the states, which would not allow what he deemed to be Pelosi’s efforts to nationalize the vote-by-mail procedure.
“What Nancy Pelosi is trying to do — this goes back to what I said before — she wants nationwide universal mail-in ballots because she thinks it helps the Democrats,” Rogers added. “But she doesn’t get to make that decision. The Constitution says the states do.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5
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