The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“U.S. Postal Service (Executive Calendar)” mentioning Richard J. Durbin was published in the Senate section on pages S880-S881 on Feb. 25.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
U.S. Postal Service
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, a lot of people are familiar with this saying. It goes like this:
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night shall
[delay] these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
That is the motto of the U.S. Postal Service, inscribed on the buildings, and emblazoned in our memories of the dutiful work and awesome responsibility of the U.S. Postal Service throughout our history.
I am proud of the Postal Service, and most Americans are as well. If you ask many people ``What is your contact with the Federal Government, the U.S. Federal Government?'' they might be hard-pressed to identify it, but when you mention the Postal Service, they say ``Of course. Six days a week, my mailman, the person delivering the mail.''
During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, many of us stayed home in our neighborhoods for lengthy periods of time. It became a routine that when the mailman came each day, as he did, we went out to greet him with masks on and chatted for just a moment or two.
It was a tough assignment. They were no longer showing up at 2 p.m. in the afternoon as usual but sometimes 7 and 8 o'clock at night. They kept up with their responsibility.
I say that because I want to preface these remarks by letting everyone know that I am proud of the Postal Service. I will fight to keep it in business serving America, and I know that it is going through extreme hardship at the present time.
But 2 nights ago, I was on a town meeting call with Alderman Leslie Hairston of the Fifth Ward in Chicago. She asked me to come on the call because of the problems that she is having in the Hyde Park area. She wanted me to hear some of the situations that they were facing in the Fifth Ward.
The U.S. Postal Service, unfortunately, is a lifeline that is being threatened at the current time. So many people in Chicago and all across the country depend on it for regular, prompt mail service to deliver everything from birthday cards to bills, cards, checks, and medicine. Yet, for months now, mail delivery has been slow and unpredictable for millions of Americans.
I have heard from many Chicago-area residents, just like I heard the other night, and small businesses that have gone upwards of a month--a month--without the delivery of mail. These delays are having a devastating impact on the lives of families in my State.
One Chicago man said that after receiving no mail for 3 weeks, he went to the local post office to check where his mail was. He waited in line for 6 hours before he finally was given his mail. Another woman wrote me that she worries that missing bills will hurt her credit rating, making it even harder for her to make ends meet. Another woman wrote that she worries that missing bills will hurt not only her credit rating but could hurt her personally by denying basic prescriptions and medicine that she counts on. Small business owners are losing customers because their mail-order deliveries are delayed or just flat disappear.
But this vivid example that brings these together is the story of Ms. Carmella McCoy Gonzalez. She has a disability. She is unable to travel really much outside her home--restrictions that have become even more constraining during the pandemic. Ms. McCoy Gonzalez suffers from high blood pressure and a heart condition, making her regular delivery of medication essential. However, she reports that for the past few months, she and her neighbors are lucky if they get mail delivered one day a week. She told my office that a shipment of medicine sent on February 8 didn't reach her home until February 23, while others just simply didn't arrive at all.
When they reached out to the local post office, they were told that they wouldn't be getting any mail because there weren't enough carriers to deliver it. In fact, a report from the Postal Service Office of the Inspector General in early February found that the reason there weren't enough postal carriers to deliver the mail is that the administrators just hadn't bothered removing the names of employees who no longer worked there. This meant they weren't able to bring in additional staff when needed to deliver a growing backlog of delayed mail.
The report noted that more than 60,000--60,000--pieces of mail had been delayed in Chicago neighborhoods over a period of several weeks. These delays are not new, and they are certainly not confined to Chicago. U.S. Postal Service customers in many States have endured delays and other problems with mail service for months. Veterans are going without medication that has been mailed to them from the VA. Small businesses are missing delivery dates. Families are missing paychecks and not receiving notices of premiums due in time.
Timely, reliable mail delivery is always important, and it is especially critical now. Receiving medications and other important deliveries enables people to stay safely at home rather than to venturing out and risking COVID infections.
Regular mail service helps sustain the economy during an unprecedented public health crisis by providing a low-cost shipping option for small businesses that are struggling to survive. Yet, rather than focusing on how to fix the current delivery delays, U.S. Postal Service leaders are now considering changes that could result in higher prices and even more delays. This is no plan to fix the Postal Service; it is a plan to sabotage the Postal Service in order to benefit its commercial competitors.
Cut service, raise prices, then lose customers because you cut services and raised prices, and then just repeat that destructive cycle again and again until there are little or no customers left--that is the plan of the Postal Service under Postmaster General DeJoy, and Congress needs to step in. We must demand that the Postmaster General implement new policies and operational changes immediately to end delivery delays in Chicago and across the country. Congress needs to ensure the Postal Service has all the resources and tools it needs to provide reliable and affordable services during this critical time and to come out of this pandemic on secure financial footing.
Our Founders understood that reliable and affordable mail service was essential to our economy and our national unity. The Postal Service is the one public service that is so important that it is actually mentioned by name in the Constitution. We cannot allow its temporary custodians, appointed by the previous administration, to kill it with a death of a thousand cuts in order to enrich private competitors, especially during this pandemic.
This situation is grave and serious. For a lot of people, the delay of a day or two in receiving mail is just an inconvenience; for others, it could be a matter of life or death literally when so many medicines are moving through the mail, prescriptions and medications that people count on for their livelihood. And it really is something that has been so fundamental in America.
We have to ask the basic question: What is going on here? I am happy to report that yesterday the Biden administration announced that they were appointing three new Governors to fill three vacancies on the Postal Board of Governors. Those vacancies have been too long in festering and creating the situation we have today.
The Postmaster General, Mr. DeJoy, who came to this position in controversy when he started suggesting he was going to delay the delivery of ballots in the previous election of November 3, is adamant that he is going to continue on his mission. We have to intervene on behalf of the people whom we represent and on behalf of this country.
I stand by the Postal Service. I believe in the men and women who make it work. And everyone I have met--certainly in my neighborhood and the ones who have been coming to my home over the years--almost became a part of the family. I knew all about their families and some of the problems and wonderful things that were happening in their lives. That was part of the experience, the postal experience, in smalltown America that we want to preserve. But when it comes to the big cities, we have to be sensitive to that as well. When massive amounts of mail are being held in trailer trucks behind the post office, not being sorted and delivered, it is just absolutely, positively unacceptable.
If COVID-19 among the workforce is one of the reasons, let's address that directly--in terms of vaccinations, No. 1; in terms of replacement employees or temporary employees, No. 2; whatever it takes to keep the Postal Service at the highest quality.
I urge my colleagues, when you go home, if you are hearing the same stories about the U.S. Postal Service, let's make this a bipartisan response. Families and businesses and vulnerable individuals across America are counting on us.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Alerts Sign-up