PARKERSBURG — Two of West Virginia’s three members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted against an aid package for the Postal Service that would reverse cuts and prevent any effort to slow delivery of the mail.
Rep. David McKinley, R-1st, was among the 26 Republicans who voted for House Resolution 8015 worth $25 billion to the Postal Service.
West Virginia Reps. Alex Mooney, R-2nd, who represents Wirt and other counties in the region, and Carol Miller, R-3rd, voted against the bill, dubbed the Delivering for America Act.
The bill passed 257-150.
McKinley, Mooney and Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Washington in Ohio, who also voted against the resolution, went off on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and accused her of political motives.
“Supporting the mission of the postal service should not be a partisan issue, unfortunately Democrats have chosen to turn it into one,” McKinley said.
“They must have a short memory. After all, the Obama administration proposed reducing service to five-day delivery, closing rural post offices, and altering the USPS retirement system, all of which I opposed.
“And now Speaker Pelosi has rushed the House back for a vote on the USPS, but in so doing missed an opportunity to help struggling families and businesses,” he said. “The House should have used this opportunity to provide relief for families and small businesses, and additional funding to schools and hospitals.”
Opponents to reducing postal services during a pandemic and just before an election cited the removal of equipment and boxes and a possible slow down of deliveries of other mail, including prescriptions and benefits.
President Donald Trump, who has claimed voting by mail would be fraught with fraud opposes, opposes the resolution and has threatened to veto it.
“I’m not concerned about Ohio’s election process. In our state we have a solid system in place where citizens can request an absentee ballot,” Johnson said.
“And, of course, people can always vote in-person early or on Election Day. It is also clear that even a massive surge in absentee voting would pale in comparison to peak mail volume around the holiday season.”
Johnson called the vote “the latest controversy drummed up by Speaker Pelosi and her liberal left allies surrounding the United States Post Office.” He cited the financial problems at the Postal Service.
“This issue didn’t just appear overnight as many on the left would have you believe. The removal of mail boxes is also not new: 14,000 of them were removed during the Obama administration,” Johnson said. “What did happen, however, over the last couple of weeks, is that Democrats conjured up yet another fake scandal in an attempt to hurt President Trump. Speaker Pelosi recently claimed that seniors’ Social Security checks are in jeopardy because of the USPS’s lack of funding. This is false, and she knows it. Most seniors have had their checks electronically deposited since 2013.”
Mooney said the resolution undermines postal reforms and harms the long-term solvency of the Postal Service.
“Speaker Pelosi convened the U.S. House of Representatives today to fuel a false and intentionally misleading theory about the USPS. The best and most secure way to vote, as intended by our Founding Fathers, is in person,” Mooney said.
“Furthermore, the USPS has clearly stated it can handle the volume of election mail. The fact is that if every registered American voted by mail, the total mail volume would be far less than the two and a half billion pieces of mail the USPS handled in the week before Christmas last year.”