Why is the Postmaster General's picture not displayed in post offices? Isn't that where pictures of wanted criminals are always displayed?
David Steiner (above), the nation's new Postmaster General, is completely on board with Trump's desire to restrict mail-in voting. Having been directed to come up with a plan to do so, Steiner, who succeeded Louis DeJoy, says he is going forward with his plan and will definitely make sure it is implemented.
The backstory: Trump declared that he was going to restrict mail-in voting for the 2026 midterms to combat voter fraud. He directed the Postal Service - ostensibly independent of presidential authority since 1971 - to root out names perceived to be illegally on the voter rolls and deny mail-in ballots to those allegedly illegal registrants based on state ledgers of registered voters. A federal judge in Boston ruled against Trump, saying it was unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court invalidated that ruling, explaining that the case against Trump was initiated before the Postal Service had finalized a new mail-in ballot rule per Trump's orders. Steiner has since issued his rule, the rule was challenged in court, and Trump has now appealed to the Supreme Court to uphold Steiner's rule, even though, as commentator Molly Jong-Fast noted, it "would effectively let the executive branch interfere in voting in a way that raises serious concerns about partisanship and disenfranchisement," especially when elections are run by the states, not the federal government.
DeJoy, who eviscerated the Postal Service by shutting down facilities and removing mailboxes, was probably our worst Postmaster General since Lawrence O'Brien, President Lyndon Johnson's Postmaster General; it was O'Brien who terminated mail contract with railroad companies en masse, cutting off a vital source of revenue to the then-already-beleaguered railroads. But Steiner seems to be eager to make DeJoy look like Cave Johnson by comparison. (Cave Johnson, who was our twelfth Postmaster General and served under his fellow Tennessean President James K. Polk, initiated pre-set postal rates and pre-paid postage, paving the way for the United States to issue its first postage stamps in 1847, after Sir Rowland Hill in Britain did the same seven years earlier.)
So what can we do? Not much, alas. The only mitigating factor here is that even if the Supreme Court does rule in Trump's favor - not out of the realm of possibility despite the clarity of the Constitution's ban on federal interference in state-run elections, and a Supreme Court ruling that violates the elections clause would be yet another argument in favor of the breakup of the United States - it would be too close to the 2026 midterms to fully or even partially implement it. But it would be implemented in time for the 2028 presidential and congressional elections, when Trump plans to run for a third term despite the Twenty-Second Amendment's clearly enunciated term limit on the Presidency.
My solution? Vote early. Vote early, but don't vote often - that will only make Trump's case about voter fraud. But do vote early. When registered Democrats and Democratic-leading independents vote early, the local canvassers are able to determine who has already voted and who hasn't, and early voters make it that much easier for the canvassers to locate and reach those who haven't voted yet. If you must deposit a paper ballot and you live in a county, parish (in deference to Louisiana), municipality (in deference to Connecticut, which abolished county government in 1961, even though its counties have continued to appear on maps), or voting precinct (in deference to Alaska) that has drop boxes for ballots, it is far better to use those than to mail your ballot. And it's easy to track from the drop box.
Yeah, I'm still voting. So long as New Jersey does not secede and try to become a Canadian province or form a new union with other Middle Atlantic states, I am going to continue to vote and do so in person and early. But I remain a secessionist, and if my new U.S. Representative - Analilia Mejia, the first woman of both African and Hispanic origin to serve in Congress - ever has a constituents' meeting, I plan to tell her so.
Posts
