WASHNGTON – Minnesota Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar want answers on why mail delivery is running as much as four days late out of the Rochester sorting center for southern Minnesota and North Dakota. The senators told Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that 130,000 pieces of mail at six post offices were missing or delayed in one recent two-day period. Too, they said deliveries have been delayed for four days, sometimes longer, in Rochester. “Letter carriers, especially in rural areas, work extremely hard to make deliveries on time, especially around the holidays, said Klobuchar and Smith. “Without support from district management and the postmaster general in Washington, their jobs go from difficult to nearly impossible.” Bity Klobuchar and Smith are Democrars.
Why USPS clog? Senators blame postal leadership for failures.
Postmaster profile
Louis DeJoy was appointed U.S. postmaster general in 2020 by then-President Donald Trump. He was a major Republican donor and fundraiser for Trump. He was the first postmaster general in a generation without any previous experience with the U.S. Postal Service. Also he was he first postmaster general to come directly from the board of a privately owned competitor to the Postal Service. His company, New Breed Logistics, still held active service contracts with the Postal Service, generating controversy over conflicts of interest. The appointment to postmaster general is open-ended with no fixed expiration date.
DeJoy. Introduced elaborate and untested sorting systems that he claimed wold reduce costs but flubbed badly, resulted in delivery slowdowns, and damaged postal worker morale.