Senator Peters asks to halt Trump's USPS board nominees over partisan imbalance

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-Mich.) has called on Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to pause the current slate of U.S. Postal Service (USPS) board nominees until the administration puts forward Democratic candidates to serve on the board.

Current Board Composition

The USPS Board of Governors currently consists of:

• Two Democratic members
• One Republican member
• One independent member

The board has five vacancies, and President Trump has submitted four Republican nominees. By law, no more than five members of the USPS board may belong to the same political party.

Peters' Concerns

"This imbalance in representation would be unprecedented and would undermine public confidence in the Board's ability to serve the public interest above any partisan political aims," Peters wrote in his letter.

During his first administration, Trump submitted a mix of Democratic and Republican nominees to the USPS board and consulted with congressional leaders from both parties—consistent with the tradition of prior administrations.

"Unfortunately, President Trump has departed from this long-standing practice and has not engaged in any consultation with the Senate Minority Leader or the Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs," Peters added.

Broader Context

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and top Democrats on several Senate committees sent a letter to the White House last month, pushing back on the administration's broader lack of Democratic nominees for independent agencies.

Peters' letter comes less than a month after the Supreme Court's decision in Slaughter v. Federal Trade Commission, which stripped removal protections from members of independent boards and commissions. While that decision does not explicitly address instances where Congress requires the president to nominate members of the other political party, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that Congress may not "saddle him with those with whom he cannot work."

Trump's Involvement with USPS

Trump has been more personally involved in USPS operations than his recent predecessors:

• March Executive Order: Directed states to send USPS a list of voters who vote by mail and to refuse to mail ballots to unlisted voters. (State governments retain primary responsibility for conducting elections.)
• Census Collaboration: Early in his second term, USPS agreed to work with the Census Bureau on a test of the upcoming decennial count.
• Potential Merger: Trump considered merging USPS with the Commerce Department.
• First Term Actions: Trump threatened to withhold pandemic relief funds from USPS unless it agreed to charge Amazon higher rates for package delivery. A Treasury Department task force also recommended privatizing some postal operations.

Expert Analysis

Paul Steidler, a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, emphasized the importance of viewing the nominations "in the broader context of the Trump administration's views about Democratic appointments" and the Supreme Court's recent ruling.

"It's important to see the president's actions in light of the Slaughter decision, and in light of the fact that the Supreme Court has backed up his ability to remove board members that he doesn't want to have in place," Steidler said.

Steidler noted that the postmaster general "has a ton of power, relative to the board," and argued that the board's political composition should not distract from the broader issue of postal reform and preventing USPS from running out of cash.

"Whether you like it or not, this gives Trump and the Republicans ownership of fixing the Postal Service," Steidler said. "The focus has to be on reengineering the Postal Service. Part of that should be having a stronger, independent board that can look into what's going on, and raise the alarm bells when there are serious issues that should be of concern to the American people."

Union Response

A spokesman for the American Postal Workers Union told Government Executive that the union is concerned the Trump administration has submitted nominees without any postal or logistics experience.