That @SpeakerPelosi and @SenSchumer released a lengthy joint statement on the USPS crisis yesterday without a single action item in it just boggles my mind.
You can read the statement here, by the way. Nothing in it about how @SpeakerPelosi intends to use her power as the Speaker of the House to address this crisis. Not a single word.
People are in my mentions asking what Pelosi could do. As I answer, bear in mind that I'm just a schmuck community college professor, not, you know, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, whose job it is to know the answer to that question. But here goes.
Call the House back into session. Start issuing subpoenas demands for documents. Put people under oath—and not just the Postmaster. Build the factual case for what the hell is happening, whose responsibility it is, and what they've got on tap for the future. That's one.
Two: Show up in person at USPS facilities. Conduct a public, visible census of postal equipment. Get yourself photographed in front of mothballed mail sorters. Have members hold press events with photogenic aggrieved postal customers on sites where mailboxes have been uprooted.
Three: Start telling ordinary voters who are freaking out and pissed off what THEY can do.
And if folks aren't convinced that the congressional leadership shouldn't be doing more, check out this thread that details what rank-and-file members ARE doing.
This is a perfectly good thread from @RepDonBeyer, and it's exactly the kind of messaging that Pelosi and Schumer aren't offering right now.
And the Beyer thread—and all the stuff he talks about in that thread—is a reminder that we're not just talking about "the Democrats" here. We're talking about specific people in specific leadership positions.
There's lots of congressional Dems who are taking visible action of exactly the kind I'm calling for—including red-state centrists like Tester and Manchin. As @mattbc noted, this issue is a slam dunk, politically, in every state.
