Democrats Urge USPS to Defy Trump Order Undermining Voting Rights

Most Recent Post Lead Democrats on the House Oversight and Administration Committees are urging the U.S. Postal Service to refuse President Donald Trump’s executive order to illegally limit mail-in voting. In a letter Friday to the U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors, shared exclusively with The New Republic , Ranking Members Robert Garcia and Joe Morelle argued the agency should refuse to implement an executive order instructing the USPS to refuse to deliver ballots of anyone who is not on a federal voting list. The lawmakers argue in the letter that Trump has no authority over the USPS, which is an independent agency only accountable to its own board of governors. The USPS is specifically barred from making “any undue or unreasonable discrimination among users of the mails,” the letter noted, and Trump’s executive order would have the agency illegally perform election administration duties. Trump’s order, signed in late March, directed that states could notify USPS whether they plan to allow mail-in or absentee ballots up to 90 days before a federal election, and “should” notify the agency whether they intend to supply a list of eligible voters within 60 days of the election. The order also directed USPS to produce a set of mail-in and absentee participation lists for each state, and refuse to deliver ballots for anyone who is not on them. However, there is no law that requires states to provide this information to the USPS, or authorizes USPS to require states to provide that data. The timeline presented by the EO could potentially leave millions of Americans disenfranchised. “All 50 states and the District of Columbia allow voters to register to vote and apply to vote by mail until and up to 60 days before an election, with some states setting vote by mail application deadlines much later than 60 days,” the letter said. “In addition, it is not clear how the Postal Service would reconcile differences or verify the accuracy of state-supplied voter lists alongside a DHS State Citizenship List. This EO will quickly create a two-tiered voting system where some Americans’ right to vote would be denied,” the letter said. The Democratic lawmakers requested to know whether the board of governors planned to implement Trump’s order, and which specific provisions it would attempt to satisfy. They also requested a staff-level briefing be held to explain how the agency plans to respond, and address the concerns outlined in the letter. Officials from at least two dozen states have already sued the Trump administration to oppose this executive order, which threatens states’ constitutional right to oversee their own elections. The letter points to Trump’s threats to “nationalize” or “take over” federal elections, as well as his baseless claims of voter fraud. Republicans are also still attempting to pass the SAVE America Act, which would prohibit universal mail-in voting, although Senate Majority Leader John Thune has indicated the measure is not his top priority. Under that legislation, voters would have to submit an application to receive a mail-in ballot. Share This Story Read more about voting rights: Nearly Two Dozen Democratic States Hit Trump With Elections Lawsuit Most Recent Post President Trump went on a long, angry social media tirade Thursday night while the entire country was asleep, once again raising doubts about his mental fitness and temperament. Just after midnight, Trump reposted a message from the Border Patrol union calling on “extreme leftist advocate” Senator Chuck Schumer to resign over his recent comments in which he said “ nobody respects ” ICE or Border Patrol. Just one minute after that, Trump delusionally reposted a random allegation that former President Obama staged a “ seditious conspiracy ” to overthrow the U.S. government in 2016. He then made four posts about how Obama and Hillary Clinton should be charged with treason. This was all before 1:00 a.m. After his Obama derangement syndrome subsided, he argued that the entire 2020 election—which he lost—should be “permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect!” if the Southern Poverty Law Center loses the DOJ lawsuit against them. (The case is unrelated to the 2020 election .) Then that was followed by a post attributed to actor Clint Eastwood talking about how great Trump is. Eastwood never said that . Rather than posting about midterms, the affordability crisis, the war on Iran, or just not at all, the president of the United States is crashing out in the middle of the night, attempting to attack political opponents on no real grounds and relitigating an election that every sensible person knows he lost. Share This Story Editor’s Pick: Trump and the Midterms Most Recent Post The Department of Defense is brainstorming ways to punish NATO members that didn’t support President Donald Trump’s war with Iran. Reuters, citing an unnamed U.S. government official, reports that the federal government is considering suspending Spain from the transatlantic alliance and reevaluating the United Kingdom’s claim to the Falkland Islands. The official told the news agency that these options were laid out in an internal Pentagon email. The Trump administration is upset at NATO countries that have refused to grant the U.S. access to their bases or rights to their airspace for the Iran war. The email, circulating at the highest levels of the DOD, reportedly said that those rights are “just the absolute baseline for NATO.” If the U.S. wants to suspend member countries like Spain , it will likely run into pushback from other NATO members. One NATO official told Reuters that “NATO’s Founding Treaty does not foresee any provision for suspension of NATO membership.” When asked about the email, the Pentagon’s press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, replied, “As President Trump has said, ​despite everything that the United States has done for our NATO allies, they were not there for us. “The War Department will ensure that the President has credible options to ensure that our allies are no longer a paper tiger and instead do their part. We have no further comment on any internal deliberations to that effect,” Wilson said. Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO, even prior to the Iran war, repeatedly threatening to leave the alliance over petty grievances such as countries rebuffing his desire to “take” Greenland. In recent weeks, he has complained that NATO members won’t help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. On April 1, he again told Reuters that he was “absolutely, without question” considering leaving the organization. But that would likely require approval from Congress, and Trump would have to go around it and invoke presidential authority over foreign policy, which would face legal challenges. And taking punitive action against our own allies would result in backlash domestically and abroad. But Trump does not respect long-standing alliances, and if he feels slighted, blowing them up is a strong possibility. Share This Story Editor’s Pick: Trump Hit by Brutal Fox Poll as Aides Scramble: “He’s in a Bad Mood” Most Recent Post Donald Trump would get around to ending the bloody conflict in Iran, but come on—we all deserve a break once in a while! That was essentially what the president told reporters on Thursday when asked about the ongoing war. After Trump falsely claimed the United States had been involved with Iran for only “five and a half weeks,” a reporter piped up. “It’s [been] eight weeks that the U.S. now has been involved with Iran,” the reporter said . “You initially had said it would be four to six weeks and it would be over.” “Well, I hoped that, but I took a little break,” Trump retorted. “I gave them a break.” If true, the idea that Trump took a two-week-long break from dealing with the war is pretty insane. What was he doing during that period? Watching TV? Brushing up on his figure drawing ? DoorDashing McDonalds to the White House? (He actually did do that last one.) In terms of Trump’s claim that we’ve been at war for less than six weeks, we should note how easily the man elected to lead our country finds it to lie to the public. The reporter is correct in that the U.S. and Israel began launching military strikes on Iran on February 28. Including that day, it has been 55 days since the conflict began, or one day less than eight weeks. If you wanted to be kind to Trump, you could argue that the ceasefire he announced on April 7—after threatening to destroy Iranian civilization earlier that day—means he is technically correct and the war is already over. Trump indefinitely extended the ceasefire on Tuesday. But the Strait of Hormuz is still closed amid contentious peace talks, and the Marines fired at and seized an Iranian cargo ship on Sunday . While there is potential for both sides to come to an agreement soon, the conflict isn’t over yet. Trump admitted as much when a different reporter asked how long he was willing to wait to get a response from Iran during his peace talks. “Don’t rush me,” Trump said . “We were in Vietnam for 18 years. We were in Iraq for many, many years.” Oh well. At least now he’s actually calling it a war . Share This Story Read more about the war: Here’s What Trump Was Doing While Iran Talks Fell Apart Most Recent Post Our nearly 80-year-old president appears to have nodded off during a meeting, for the umpteenth time . President Trump’s eyes grew visibly heavy around the halfway point of his televised announcement of a deal with drug company Regeneron on Thursday afternoon, closing fully and reopening multiple times while suited Cabinet members and pharmaceutical executives stood behind him in the Oval Office. Trump is about to hit REM on camera during an Oval Office event. It's just incredible. pic.twitter.com/h0BwcHLURJ — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 23, 2026 This is the same man who keeps calling former President Joe Biden “Sleepy Joe.” The last time Trump dozed off publicly was last month during a Cabinet meeting while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ranted against the media’s coverage of the U.S.-Israeli joint war on Iran and Lebanon. And just days before that, he seemed to fall asleep at a press conference about his Memphis Task Force. From the power naps to the unhinged, genocidal Truth Social posts , there is a wealth of evidence that would—at the very least—lead us to question Trump’s present mental acuity. Share This Story Editor’s Pick: RFK Jr. Says Every Person Who Lost Health Insurance Is Illegal View More Posts Share This Story Read More: Politics Law Supreme Court Constitution Foreign Policy Health Care Economic Inequality Taxes Washington