That’s why, when it comes to reforming the Postal Service, President Biden and Congress must act boldly and swiftly to ensure that DeJoy’s reign is short-lived. If the president had the power to fire the postmaster general, that would make the matter simple. However, the postmaster general can be dismissed only by the agency’s board of governors, the current members of which were all appointed by Trump. Some Democrats, like Representative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey and Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, have called on Biden to fire the board members in order to nominate new members who could end DeJoy’s tenure, but that measure is too extreme, legally precarious, and sets a dangerous precedent.
Instead, Biden should prioritize filling the three current vacancies on the agency’s board. By doing so, five of the board’s nine members — the majority needed to oust DeJoy — would be Democrats. (Though the current members were all Trump appointees, the law requires that no more than five members be of the same party.) That probably still wouldn’t be enough to fire DeJoy, though, because one of the Trump-appointed Democrats on the board whose term won’t expire for nearly another two years, Donald Lee Moak, has so far been supportive of the postmaster general. If Moak is still willing to back DeJoy, Biden will be stuck with the postmaster general until 2022.