The Senate has yet to begin a formal debate over a proposed postal overhaul, but the jawboning is already well under way.
The latest development: 27 senators led by Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wrote the bill’s sponsors today urging them to consider some “significant improvements.” Such as protection for rural post offices; barring the U.S. Postal Service from a change in delivery service standards that could lead to the closing of up to 252 mail processing plants; and requiring the continuation of six-day-a-week mail delivery for at least another four years. They also call for creation of a blue-ribbon commission that would have six months to devise a new business model for the Postal Service “to achieve long-term fiscal sustainability.”
Apart from Sanders, the signers are all Democrats. Still to be seen is whether the bill’s sponsors, including Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and the committee’s top Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, will consider any of their ideas. But the letter offers telling evidence for why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has yet to bring the bill up for debate weeks after it was placed on the Senate calendar.