Government affairs

The House and Senate were in session this week with work being done on a wide array of issues including addressing the President’s national emergency declaration, the electoral reform bill H.R. 1, and much more.

Newly designed fact sheets

Be sure to check out NALC’s Government Affairs webpage to find the newly designed fact sheets that are helping your fellow letter carrier activists educate their members of Congress on our issues. They include fact sheets on About NALC and its Members, Prefunding, Postal Reform, and NALC’s priority resolutions. These may be found on the NALC Government Affairs page under Legislative Activities, and then Fact Sheets.

Letter carrier fly-ins continue

After a successful start last week to ‘fly-in’ season in Washington DC with Regions 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10, the lobbying continued with Illinois letter carriers coming to town this week. They met their members of Congress and senators to discuss issues that impact postal and federal employees, including our priority resolutions, eliminating the prefunding mandate, the upcoming fiscal year 2020 budget, and more.

Senate Activity

On Thursday, a new Senate resolution opposing postal privatization (S. Res. 99) in the 116th was introduced by Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) along with 23 bipartisan colleagues, which is already about halfway to reaching 51 – the number that reflects a majority of support in the Senate.

House Activity

On Friday, in a party line 234-193 vote, the House of Representatives passed the “For the People Act of 2019” (H.R. 1), the House Democrats’ sweeping legislation that looks to reform voting rights, campaign finance reform, lobbying, and government ethics, among others. Of the many measures in the bill, language expanding no-excuse absentee voting (often referred to as vote-by-mail) is included. Rep. Harley Rouda (D-CA) offered an amendment that was made in order to direct any paper change of address to instruct individuals to update their voter registration as well. NALC continues to have concerns regarding funding of the vote-by-mail provisions, but the legislation is highly unlikely to progress further as Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has stated he will not allow the bill to be considered on the Senate floor.

Resolutions

House Resolution 23 (H. Res. 23) – Door Delivery
Status: Introduced by Reps. Susan Davis (D-CA) and Peter King (R-NY)
Co-sponsors: 90 (70 Democrats – 20 Republicans)

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States Postal Service should take all appropriate measures to ensure the continuation of door delivery for all business and residential customers.

House Resolution 33 (H. Res. 33) – Anti-privatization
Status: Introduced by Reps. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) and Rodney Davis (R-IL)
Co-sponsors: 199 (171 Democrats – 28 Republicans)

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress should take all appropriate measures to ensure that the United States Postal Service remains an independent establishment of the Federal Government and is not subject to privatization.

House Resolution 54 (H. Res. 54) – Six-day Delivery
Status: Introduced by Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and Sam Graves (R-MO)
Co-sponsors: 149 (111 Democrats – 39 Republicans)

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States Postal Service should take all appropriate measures to ensure the continuation of its six-day mail delivery service.

House Resolution 60 (H. Res. 60) – Service Standards
Status: Introduced by Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) and Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
Co-sponsors: 103 (85 Democrats – 18 Republicans)

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States Postal Service should take all appropriate measures to restore service standards in effect as of July 1, 2012.

Senate Resolution 99 (S. Res. 99) – Anti-privatization
Status: Introduced by Sens. Gary Peters and Jerry Moran (R-KS)
Co-sponsors: 25 (17 Democrats – 6 Republicans – 2 Independents)
Expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should take all appropriate measures to ensure that the United States Postal Service remains an independent establishment of the Federal Government and is not subject to privatization in whole or in part.