President Joe Biden is planning to jettison Ron Bloom, a key ally of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, from the U.S. Postal Service board, according to The Washington Post. The move may signal that DeJoy’s ouster is forthcoming; Democrats, in particular, have long disapproved of the Trump appointee’s focus on cost-cutting.
Bloom’s term as the chair the U.S. Postal Service board expires next month. By declining to renominate him, Biden can add an appointee to the board that is amenable to getting rid of DeJoy.
Bloom is a Democrat, but he’s supported DeJoy’s decisions to slow mail delivery time and raise shipping rates. The two men also have a financial relationship. DeJoy recently bought up to $305,000 in bonds from Bloom’s asset management firm, although Bloom insisted that he didn’t benefit from the transaction.
In a recent piece calling for Bloom’s removal, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wrote:
Ron Bloom has defended DeJoy as he’s undermined public trust in the postal service. Bloom backed DeJoy even as he acted to apparently jeopardize the postal service’s plans to ensure that voting by mail would not be threatened during the pandemic. Since Bloom became the board’s chair, DeJoy has introduced a ten year plan to slow mail and increase prices and has come under federal investigation for an alleged straw donor scheme. The United States Postal Service also seriously mismanaged DeJoy’s conflicts of interest from the start, creating an exceedingly high risk of him violating criminal conflict of interest laws.
Despite these serious threats to the Postal Service and mail delivery, Bloom did nothing to intervene and publicly supported DeJoy’s plan.
The Post adds:
Four Senate liberals — Kirstin Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — have called Bloom’s support of DeJoy grounds for his replacement.
Gillibrand has said she would “vigorously oppose” any attempt to renominate Bloom. “During a time when Americans have relied on the Postal Service for prescriptions, benefits and voting, DeJoy has slashed service hours, arbitrarily removed mail processing equipment and caused unprecedented and widespread delays,” she said in a statement.
Sanders said the board needs new leadership given the “major crises” confronting the agency. “We need a Postal Service board of governors that is committed to replacing Mr. DeJoy with a postmaster general who will protect and strengthen the Postal Service, not undermine and sabotage it.
CNET explains how DeJoy’s tenure has impacted USPS customers:
The new service standards for first-class mail and packages, which started Oct. 1, lengthen the delivery time for about 30% of its volume. That means that letters, parcels and magazine subscriptions traveling longer distances could take up to five days to arrive, instead of two or three days.
There was a price increase in August and the Postal Service just temporarily increased the cost to ship a parcel during the holiday season. The current changes are part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s 10-year Delivering for America plan to overhaul the agency and try to tackle its massive debt. Besides lengthening mail timetables and raising rates, DeJoy’s plan, which has generated controversy, also reduces post office hours.