Talk:Louis DeJoy

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Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk · contribs) has been paid by United States Postal Service. Full COI disclosure.

The following reference(s) may be useful when improving this article in the future:

https://www.henricocitizen.com/virginia-mail-service-improves-second-trump-push-to-privatize-usps-unlikely/?ref=henrico-newsflash-newsletter

Regarding the USPS Board of Governors

The "Postmaster general - Selection and conflict of interest controversy" section starts:

"On May 6, 2020, the bipartisan USPS Board of Governors, all selected by Trump and confirmed by the Senate, announced DeJoy's appointment as postmaster general and CEO, despite concerns about conflicts of interest."

This is a confusingly written sentence. I checked the cited source for the first half (I believe source # 35), and the word "bipartisan" does not appear there. I'm not sure the term applies if every member was selected by one president, even if there was some Democrat consent in the Senate. Michlusky (talk) 13:53, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi User:Michulsky, I went back to source #35 and found this explanation: "The governors are chosen to represent the public interest generally and cannot be representatives of special interests. Not more than five of the nine may belong to the same political party.” This supports the inclusion of "bipartisan", and I feel that keeping it there provides helpful context. As I do have a conflict of interest here as a Postal Service employee, other editors should weigh in, but I did want to follow up to share this quote from the source to help. Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk) 10:28, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service I definitely might be misunderstanding something here, but after a little more research, I think I found the issue. From Wikipedia's description of the event in the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service article, emphases mine:

"On November 14, 2014 (with effect on February 1, 2015), the board appointed Megan Brennan postmaster general, to succeed Patrick R. Donahoe. In December 2014, the extended term of Mickey D. Barnett was to expire, while the Senate had still not confirmed five nominees submitted by then-president Obama. Just before the loss of its quorum, the board delegated its authority to a “Temporary Emergency Committee“ (TEC) comprising the board members for the time being, with the same authority as the board had with 9 appointed members, but without the quorum requirement. After December 2014, there were three appointed board members (James Bilbray, Ellen Williams and Louis J. Giuliano) as well as the postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, and the deputy PMG, Ron Stroman, a total of five of the 11 members, and not enough to constitute a quorum. Megan Brennan became an ex officio member of the board on February 1, 2015. The extended terms of Ellen Williams and Louis J. Giuliano both expired in December 2015, and James Bilbray became the sole remaining appointed member. His nine-year term was extended by one year and he ceased to be a member in December 2016. At that point there were no appointed members on the board, and the PMG (Megan Brennan) and deputy PMG (Ron Stroman) made up the TEC.

In October 2017, then-president Donald Trump nominated three individuals to the board: Robert (Mike) Duncan, a former White House official during the George W. Bush administration, Calvin Tucker, and David Williams, former USPS inspector general. On August 28, 2018, the Senate confirmed Mike Duncan as chairman, and David Williams, as vice-chairman. On November 29, 2018, the governors appointed Tammy L. Whitcomb the USPS inspector general.

On August 1, 2019, the Senate confirmed three more nominations, allowing the board to reach a quorum for the first time since 2014. The new members are Ron Bloom and Roman Martinez IV, both former investment bankers, and John Barger, former director of the Investment and Retirement Boards of the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association, the country's largest pension fund.

In March 2020, Trump nominated Donald L. Moak to replace Alan C. Kessler (who had resigned in July 2011) and nominated William D. Zollars to replace James Bilbray (who had ceased being a member in December 2016). David C. Williams resigned from the board on April 30, 2020, and Ron Stroman resigned on June 1, 2020, as deputy PMG. On June 15, 2020, the TEC, comprising five members, selected Louis DeJoy to succeed Megan Brennan as Postmaster General (PMG). The Senate confirmed both nominations on June 18, 2020. As of January 2021, the board had six appointed members plus the postmaster general, sufficient to constitute a quorum on the board. Five of the board members are Republicans."

Apologies for the long quote, but I didn't want to leave anything out. I think it might be more accurate to say that the Temporary Emergency Committee, staffed entirely by Trump appointees (the highlighted names, I think) after the Senate refused to confirm any of Obama's appointees, selected Louis DeJoy, not the Board of Governors. Michlusky (talk) 10:52, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing that. The sentences about the appointment in that Board of Governors article don't have a source and I think is based on confusion about what was happening with the Board of Governors. The Board did have quorum when DeJoy was appointed and was (and still is) bipartisan (the members included Bloom who is a Democrat), but shortly after his appointment the Board lost quorum again. This GovExec piece explains the timeline in more detail. Here's a key quote: "The No. 2 official at the U.S. Postal Service will resign at the end of the month, the agency has announced, leaving it without a governing quorum less than a year after finally regaining one. The resignation of Deputy Postmaster General Ronald Stroman, which USPS announced in a financial filing on Tuesday but will take effect June 1, comes days after the agency’s board of governors named Louis DeJoy as the next postmaster general." As far as I can see, all the coverage of the appointment says that it was the Board that appointed DeJoy and not the TEC. Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk) 13:55, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

@Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service Interesting! I guess the sentence is just confusing because the history is confusing. (Perhaps someone should get around to fixing the Board of Governors article to keep things consistent.) Thanks for the info, Jonathan. Michlusky (talk) 14:33, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Washington Post addition

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest was declined.

Hello! I'm back on this Talk page to make a minor edit request which would be a one-sentence addition to the 10-year reform plan subsection of the article.

On July 8th, 2024, Mr. DeJoy authored an opinion editorial at The Washington Post which you can read here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/08/usps-postal-service-dejoy/. Of course, I understand that opinion articles like this cannot be used to add facts. However, I do believe it would make sense to add a sentence noting that Mr. DeJoy had penned an article about the plan's progress, arguing for it to continue. This sentence could be added to the bottom of the 10-year reform plan subsection.

Please read below:

More information Washington Post addition ...

Washington Post addition

In July 2024, Postmaster General DeJoy wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that the Delivery for America plan had proven to be effective in reducing projected 10-year losses to $65 billion from $160 billion, and argued that the plan should be allowed to continue.^[1]

References

[1]
DeJoy, Louis (July 8, 2024). "We're fixing the Postal Service. We can't stop now". Washington Post. Retrieved August 5, 2024.

If there are any questions from editors, please let me know and I'll be standing by to respond quickly. Thank you! Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk) 10:33, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

What is the rationale to include this sentence apart from the fact that you think it would "make sense"?

If COI edit requests were approved just because COI editors thought they "make sense" this encyclopaedia would be no better than an ad mag. Axad12 (talk) 16:11, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback here. Adding this sentence to the 10-year reform plan section would provide a follow up on the Delivery for America plan being introduced, which was over three years ago now. Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk) 13:58, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for providing further detail here. My feeling is that adding the sentence that you have suggested, and the link that you have provided, would fall foul of the policy on WP:PROMOTION. However, I will leave this edit request open for a second opinion. Axad12 (talk) 14:46, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I completely understand. Also, I'd like to pull in some editors who have shown interest in this Talk page in the past, which I will tag here: User:ARandomName123 and User:STEMinfo.

If either of you helpful folks have any feedback here I'd really appreciate it, thank you so much. Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk) 19:30, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Not done: I'm not convinced this is WP:DUEWEIGHT. "Person supports plan they came up with" is not really news, unless there's independent coverage of the editorial showing that it made an impact. Rusalkii (talk) 01:10, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you user:Rusalkii for taking the time to review this, and for your fair analysis on this one. Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk) 16:52, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Birthdate

He just resigned

Additional context for Departure from USPS section

Part of an edit requested by an editor with a conflict of interest has been implemented.

Hey there! I wanted to suggest some additional context for the Departure from USPS section. What's already there is accurate and well-sourced, but I thought it might benefit from a couple more reported details, to give readers a clearer sense of what happened as Mr. DeJoy was negotiating with DOGE right before leaving office. I've assembled a section draft below. I haven't revised any of the existing content, just added a few lines, which for ease of reference are highlighted in yellow.

More information Departure from USPS additions ...

Departure from USPS additions

On February 18, 2025, DeJoy announced his intention to step down from the role of Postmaster General, asking the Postal Service Board of Governors to begin a search for his successor.^[1]

On March 12, 2025, DeJoy entered into an agreement with "DOGE representatives to assist [the USPS] in identifying and achieving further efficiencies" outlined in the Delivering for America reform plan.^[2]^[3] In a letter to Congress, DeJoy confirmed that DOGE would have limited access to Postal Service data.^[3] Additionally, two USPS union leaders said that DeJoy assured them there were provisions in the agreement that would prevent DOGE from having unchecked access to postal workers' employee records.^[2]

On March 24, 2025, DeJoy resigned his position.^[4]^[5]^[6]

References

[1]
Shepardson, David (18 February 2025). "U.S. Postal Service chief asks board to identify successor". Reuters. Retrieved 18 February 2025.
[2]
Wang, Hansi Lo (2025-03-14). "USPS head agrees to let DOGE find 'efficiencies' — with limits to employee data access". NPR. Retrieved 2025-03-14.
[3]
Heckman, Jory (March 17, 2025). "USPS DOGE team will have limited access to agency data, DeJoy tells lawmakers". Federal News Network. Retrieved March 28, 2025.
[4]
Wehner, Greg (2025-03-24). "US Post Office General DeJoy resigns from role amid budget cuts shakeup". Fox Business. Retrieved 2025-03-24.
[5]
Cortellessa, Eric (2025-03-24). "Exclusive: Louis DeJoy Resigns as Postmaster General". Time. Retrieved 2025-03-24.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
[6]
Blackburn, Piper Hudspeth (2025-03-24). "US Postal Service head DeJoy resigns | CNN Politics". CNN. Retrieved 2025-03-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)

Happy to discuss these suggested additions with independent editors. Just leave a reply below this post and I'll do my best to address any questions or concerns! Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk) 12:37, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Accept this revision, thanks for checking @Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service. JuxtaposedJacob (talk) | :) | he/him | 17:49, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing, User:JuxtaposedJacob! Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk) 13:41, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

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