The Week Ahead

July 28, 2024

In good news:

Joe Biden nominated former Florida Congresswoman Val Demings to the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) Board of Governors. He also nominated Republican businessman William Zollars.

The USPS Board of Governors consists of eleven people, nine of whom are nominated by the President and must be confirmed by the Senate before taking office. The Board is rounded out by the Postmaster General and the Deputy Postmaster General. In March, President Biden appointed former Labor Secretary and Democratic mayor of Boston Marty Walsh. All three of the recent nominees are still pending Senate confirmation. Governors serve seven-year terms.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy

The good news is that this is an essential stop towards replacing Louis DeJoy, Trump’s Postmaster General, who is still in place. DeJoy is a Trump loyalist and donor who was appointed with no qualifications to run the Post Office effectively. And he hasn’t. DeJoy put measures in place that he claimed were designed to cut costs but that, in practice, seriously impaired mail delivery. In one notorious move, he dismantled sorting machines. This resulted in massive backlogs and serious delivery delays. It just so happened that led to major slowdowns in swing states just ahead of the 2020 election that resulted in tens of thousands of ballots arriving too late to be counted.

It’s frustrating that DeJoy is still in place as Biden’s term in office comes to a close. In part, that’s because procedures around the appointment of Board of Governors members are meant to preserve the essential non-political status of the postal service. But they boomeranged here. The Postmaster is selected by the Board, and that appointment is not subject to Senate confirmation. Only the Board can remove the Postmaster. But no more than five members of the Board can belong to the same political party, and Governors can only be removed “for cause”—some sort of proven bad acts or extreme neglect of their obligations. The seven-year terms mean that it has taken this long for Biden to have sufficient openings to change the balance on the Board.

Conservatives had the audacity to claim DeJoy had somehow redeemed himself because mail delivery had improved. He even tried to ingratiate himself with climate change proponents by supporting the use of electric vehicles. But people who recall the way DeJoy politicized the Postal Service, including Postal Union employees, continued to call for his replacement.

In 2021, Biden was able to appoint three governors to open positions, all of who were confirmed: Anton Hajjar (previously general counsel to the Postal Workers Union), Amber McReynolds (an election administration expert from Colorado), and Ron Stroman (former Deputy Postmaster General and lead for Postal transition on the Biden team). Biden appointed two other members to the Board in 2022, former Trump Deputy Director of OMB Derek Kan and former Obama Administrator of GSA Daniel Tangherlini. Trump appointees Roman Martinez and Robert Duncan remain in place. The new appointees, Demings and Walsh, round out the Democrats Biden hopes to place on the Board. The Republican, Zollars, who served previously, is being reappointed. So you can see what a delicate dance it takes to get to the point where replacing DeJoy is a realistic proposition. Although Presidents must appoint under the set political restrictions, the individuals they appoint are up to them, and one of the Trump appointees, who was technically a Democrat, supported DeJoy while Trump was in office.

DeJoy has continued to try to cut costs and failed to restore smooth functioning in the Post Office. Poultry farmers, like yours truly, won’t forget that his chaotic slowdown resulted in the death of thousands of day-old chicks in 2020, although they are routinely sent quite safely through the U.S. Mail. (I’ve done this three times with 100% success; the chicks are packed carefully with warm packs, food, and liquid goo and sent overnight. Workers at my local post office used to carry out the special little cartons they came in early in the morning and, with much peeping of chicks, gently hand them over to waiting customers. Now, delays and the risk of suffering chicks have put me off of doing this.) And Americans who rely on the Post Office for delivery of their prescriptions won’t forget what DeJoy’s mismanagement put them through.

Improving the Postal Service would be an immediate benefit to every American. Doing it ahead of the election and ensuring DeJoy can’t play games again is essential. Once confirmed, these most recent appointments should make it possible to replace DeJoy. It can’t happen soon enough. Beginning this week (although it will likely take a bit longer) we will watch for confirmation of these new Governors and see how quickly they take action. Virginia Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger maintains a fierce interest in this issue. Her first stint of government service was as a federal agent with the Postal Service before she went over to the CIA and then on to Congress.

It’s easy to lose track of an issue like this with everything else that’s going on. But the effectiveness of our democratic institutions depends on it. The ability of government to function on behalf of all of us, not just a “ruling class”, whether it’s the Justice Department, the Postal Service, or any other agency, depends on the commitment of leadership to public service. When agency leaders are part of a cult of personality, we move away from being a democracy. Something Donald Trump understood was that installing his loyalists gave him the potential to corrupt those agencies, even if it was just around the edges. But what happened at the Post Office with DeJoy during the 2020 election is yet another cautionary tale about how dangerous Project 2025 is. One part of it, which we’ve discussed, involves converting the federal bureaucracy from a cadre of career professionals into a group of conservative sycophants. Imagine an entire agency focused on interfering with the delivery of ballots instead of just the guy at the top.

By the way, it’s not just a theoretical risk. This evening, a federal judge in Mississippi rejected a lawsuit brought by the RNC and the Mississippi Republican Party designed to overturn a Mississippi law that would allow ballots to be counted as long as they are postmarked on or before election day, even if they are received up to five days afterward. Given the way the mail is working these days, that only makes sense. It’s the rule in many other states. But now the decision by Judge Louis Guirola faces review in front of the notoriously conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which means it's impossible to predict what the rule for mail-in ballots will be in Mississippi come election day. We need a Postmaster General who will make every effort to ensure swift delivery of Americans’ ballots instead of impeding it.

Making progress on restoring integrity in leadership at the Postal Service is a win for democracy, another incremental step on the road to fixing what Trump damaged, and a reminder that we cannot afford to go back.

In 🥥🌴 news:

Polling in Michigan found that Donald Trump now has no support among Black voters in the state. He polled at zero percent against Kamala Harris in a local poll conducted by The WDIV/Detroit News. Meanwhile, a new Michigan poll by the Detroit News has Harris tied with Trump at 41% each, with spoiler Robert Kennedy polling at 10%. In a January poll, Trump led Biden 47%-39%.

Michigan is a must-win state for Democrats. Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been awfully quiet lately, although we know she’s on the long list being vetted for the vice presidential nomination. The popular view might be that America isn’t ready for two women in the top jobs, but until this administration, we’ve always had two men. Maybe it’s time for that to change?

The enthusiasm around Harris’ candidacy continues. Her campaign announced that it raised $200 million in the first week after President Biden's endorsement, with an incredible 66% of the donations coming from first-time donors. Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, claimed on Fox News that the contributions came from "millionaires and billionaires," but that wasn’t true.

Monday night, July 29th, at 7:00 pm ET, the Harris campaign is hosting what it’s calling its first “Women for Harris National Organizing Call” in the wake of a highly successful series of calls last week that brought volunteers and donations into the campaign. Monday’s call was originally scheduled for Sunday night but had to be moved back a day because of the number of folks who signed up—if anything close to that number shows up for the call, it will beat the record for the largest Zoom call ever. That record was set last week on one of the calls for women supporting Harris. Rhonda Foxx, the national women’s engagement director for the Harris campaign wrote on Twitter, “This childless dog lady is organizing a movement - let's make history!” It’s not often that you get to go to a political event and be part of setting a record at the same time.

Everyone is invited to join the call. You can sign up here.

In legal news:

I’ll keep this short and to the point since we’re starting to run long. We’ll stay on top of any developments that occur later this week.

• Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg responded to Trump’s request to overturn his convictions in the hush money fraud case. He wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity had “no bearing on this prosecution.” The Manhattan case was based on Trump’s efforts to cover up his fling with Stormy Daniels, which he feared would prevent him from winning the election. Common sense says a case about conduct that was based on events that happened before Trump was elected can’t possibly give rise to common sense.

But, of course, common sense is not entirely at work here. In addition to disallowing criminal charges based on official conduct, five Justices (Justice Barrett did not join the rest of her conservative brethren in this part of the opinion) held that even evidence of official acts taken by a president couldn’t be introduced at trial. In the District of Columbia case, that may rule out some of the most compelling evidence of Trump’s state of mind. In this case, Trump claims evidence of conservations that occurred in the Oval Office, like the one Hope Hicks testified to where Trump told her it was a good thing Stormy Daniels’ story didn’t become public before the election, is also cloaked in presidential immunity to protect future presidents and the presidency. He also argues that Tweets sent while he was president, even about his private affairs, can’t be introduced into evidence.

Bragg has a strong argument. Trump didn’t raise this issue at the point in the case where the law required him to, and having not done it then, he has “procedurally defaulted” his ability to do it now. In most cases that would be enough for the Judge to dismiss the defendant’s motion.

Beyond that, the DA argues that the evidence they offered against Trump had nothing to do with his official duties as president, so there is nothing objectionable about their use of it. These were private conversations that occurred inside the Oval Office. The DA also argues that even if it was, there was so much other evidence against Trump that the jury wouldn’t have been convicted without it.

This argument is the type lawyers call “harmless error,” which is to say that any mistakes that were made didn’t influence the jury’s decision, so they don’t form a basis for reversal. This argument may be less persuasive to the Judge than others since the DA’s office relied on this evidence heavily in its closing argument. The argument that these private conversations had nothing to do with the presidency is stronger. And Judge Merchan can refer to the decision of the federal judge who ruled on Trump’s request to remove the prosecution from state court to federal court because it involved his official conduct. In that case, Judge Alvin Hellerstein wrote that “hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts” before holding that the “matter was a purely personal item of the president … a cover-up of an embarrassing event.”

Judge Merchan told the parties he would issue his decision by September 6. If he rules against Trump, that suggests sentencing will be on schedule for September 18. Although Trump could be sentenced to as much as four years in prison, he could receive a much more modest sentence or even probation. It’s unlikely the Judge would put him in prison ahead of the election. But there is still the matter of Trump’s repeat violations of the gag order, which he has never been sanctioned for, and which the Judge may account for in the sentence he issues.

• Judge Chutkan reclaims jurisdiction from the Supreme Court in the election interference case, under orders to assess whether the charges the Special Counsel brought fall within presidential immunity or not. It’s extraordinarily unlikely that this case will go to trial before the election. What else the Judge might do, and how quickly, is something we’ll watch for with great interest this week.

• The classified documents case that Judge Cannon dismissed is now officially on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. They’ve set a briefing schedule that calls for the Special Counsel to file his opening brief on August 27. Trump’s brief is due 30 days after the government files theirs. The government has 21 days to reply. So far, the Special Counsel hasn’t moved to expedite the schedule, which means that briefing will be available to the public while early voting is ongoing. If the Special Counsel was going to ask the 11th Circuit for a fast decision, they likely would have done so shortly after the briefing schedule was filed last week. Although they still could, they may have decided to avoid taking any steps beyond proceeding normally with the appeal this close to the election.

Trump now faces prosecutors both in the courtroom and in the court of public opinion, when voters will decide whether to send the felon or the prosecutor to the White House. That seems entirely appropriate.

We’re in this together,

Joyce