On April 16, 2024, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) held a hearing in Washington D.C. to “examine the U.S. Postal Service’s current service, operations, and finances, including oversight of changes to the Postal Service’s network and their potential impacts on mail delivery.”
At the hearing, Senator Richard Blumenthal questioned United States Postmaster General (PMG) Louis DeJoy to measure his support for the Postal Police Reform Act—bipartisan Senate legislation which would restore postal police jurisdictional authority allowing uniformed Postal Police Officers (PPOs) to once again protect letter carriers who have increasingly been the target of criminal attack. Indeed, robberies of letter carriers have exploded by 781% from only 73 robberies in 2019, to an astounding 643 robberies in 2023.
Unfortunately, Mr. DeJoy’s answers to the Senator’s questions were misleading and, quite frankly, ridiculous.