{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/press-releases/baldwin-colleagues-demand-usps-abandon-effort-to-carry-out-trumps-illegal-executive-order-restricting-vote-by-mail", "Baldwin, Colleagues Demand USPS Abandon Effort to Carry Out Trump\u2019s Illegal Executive Order Restricting Vote by Mail", "2026-06-25", "2026", "2026-06", "Democrat", "Senate", "WI", "Tammy Baldwin", "B001230", "www.baldwin.senate.gov", "baldwin", "https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and her colleagues are demanding that the United States Postal Service (USPS) abandon its proposed rule to implement President Trump\u2019s unconstitutional executive order to restrict voting by mail. The President\u2019s executive order and the USPS\u2019s proposed rule are a piece of the President\u2019s efforts to interfere in the 2026 elections and restrict Americans from voting. The Senators\u2019 demand comes on top of USPS\u2019 late delivery of ballots during Wisconsin\u2019s 2026 Spring Election, with two-thirds of Wisconsin clerks reporting problems during the April 7th election. This morning, a U.S. District Judge blocked the President\u2019s executive order limiting Americans\u2019 use of mail-in voting, but the Trump Administration is expected to appeal the ruling.\n\n\u201cWe write for a second time regarding the unconstitutional and illegal attempt to transform the United States Postal Service into an election administration agency controlled by the White House and President Trump,\u201d wrote the Senators.\n\n\u201cThis proposed rule risks disenfranchising millions of voters. We again insist that you follow the law, refuse to implement President Trump\u2019s Executive Order, and withdraw this presidentially-directed proposed rule,\u201d the Senators continued.\n\nPresident Trump\u2019s executive order directs the Postal Service to create a federal mail-in voting list made up by states absentee voters\u2019 information. Following this unconstitutional directive, USPS proposed a rule that would ultimately allow the Postal Service to determine whether millions of Americans can receive and cast ballots through the mail. Yesterday, in a U.S. Senate Committee hearing, Postmaster General David Steiner confirmed that if the rule is finalized, the Postal Service would refuse to deliver any mail-in ballots from states that did not comply with this new standard. This gives the USPS an unprecedented and illegal role in the administration of American elections. In the 2024 election, over 500,000 Wisconsinites voted by mail.\n\nThe Senators warned that the proposed rule would create a federally controlled national list of absentee voters, raising serious concerns about potential misuse and abuse. In court filings, the administration has acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security is already in discussions with USPS about potentially comparing the list to DHS datasets. The senators raised concerns that combining USPS data with unreliable federal records could lead to eligible voters being disenfranchised, or voters and election officials being unfairly targeted for investigation.\n\n\u201cUltimately, the proposed rule seeks to create a centralized national absentee voter database with individualized barcodes connected to the voters\u2019 names under the control of the President that contains the voting information of millions of Americans,\u201d wrote the Senators. \u201cThat information would be ripe for potential abuse or improper disclosure potentially imperiling the integrity of American elections.\u201d\n\n\u201cAccordingly, we insist that the Postal Service abandon this proposed regulation and return to its core mission of providing universal postal services to every American. The Constitution and federal law demand nothing less,\u201d the Senators concluded.\n\nThe letter comes as President Trump has taken an all-of-the-above approach to try to interfere in the upcoming 2026 elections. In addition to his attempt to curtail legal mail-in voting, the President has repeatedly threatened to send federal agents into states\u2019 polling places, repeated his claim about \u201crigged\u201d elections more than 100 times, and sent FBI agents into Milwaukee to relitigate his 2020 election loss.\n\nSenator Baldwin has repeatedly called on the USPS to address rate hikes and delays Wisconsinites are experiencing. In April, she demanded answers from Postmaster General David Steiner regarding long-term mail delays and staffing shortages at post offices across Wisconsin that are impacting local businesses, newspapers, and Wisconsin families who rely on USPS for prescriptions, bills, voting, and more.\n\nThe letter is led by Senators Gary Peters (D-MI), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and co-signed by the entire Senate Democratic Caucus.\n\nFull text of the letter is available here and below.\n\nDear Postmaster General Steiner, Chairwoman McReynolds, Vice Chairman Kan, Governor Stroman, and Governor Tangherlini:\n\nWe write for a second time regarding the unconstitutional and illegal attempt to transform the United States Postal Service (USPS) into an election administration agency controlled by the White House and President Trump. In April, 37 senators wrote to you after President Trump issued his Executive Order directing USPS to issue a rule to establish compulsory specifications for election mail and create a master absentee voter list of millions of American voters \u2013 with the power to refuse to deliver their ballots. In that letter we urged you not to implement the President\u2019s unconstitutional Executive Order. The Order is a blatant violation of the Constitution, which vests the authority to regulate the time, place, and manner of federal elections with the states, subject to alterations made by Congress. We received no response to that letter and USPS is now taking explicit steps to implement the Order. No federal statute vests the President or USPS with any authority to regulate elections of any kind. Accordingly, multiple states and organizations have filed lawsuits challenging the Executive Order.\n\nDespite these grave and serious legal deficiencies, on June 2, 2026, USPS published a proposed rule that, if finalized, would establish President Trump\u2019s control over federal elections and allow USPS to adjudicate who can and cannot vote by mail. This proposed rule risks disenfranchising millions of voters. We again insist that you follow the law, refuse to implement President Trump\u2019s Executive Order, and withdraw this presidentially-directed proposed rule.\n\nThe right to vote is the most sacred and cherished right of the American people. It is the bedrock of American democracy. The framers of our Constitution understood the dangers of centralizing power over federal elections and accordingly vested the primary authority to regulate the \u201ctimes, places, and manner\u201d of federal elections with the states, subject to alterations by statute enacted by Congress. The Constitution similarly vests the authority to determine the eligibility of voters with the states\u2014not the President, and certainly not with USPS. The Constitution provides no role for USPS in regulating federal elections, and no statute delegates to USPS any authority to regulate elections or voter eligibility. The proposed rule does not grapple with these serious legal deficiencies. The proposal simply cites two sections of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 to justify USPS\u2019s regulation of federal elections. These sections provide specific postal powers and general authorization to issue regulations but say nothing about regulating federal elections. Indeed, Title 39 explicitly says, \u201cIn providing services [...] the Postal Service shall not [...] make any undue or unreasonable discrimination among users of the mails,\u201d \u2013 this proposal does the exact opposite.\n\nIt is universally understood that the Postal Service does not regulate or administer American elections. By statute, USPS is \u201can independent establishment of the executive branch\u201d and its Board of Governors is protected from arbitrary removal by the President. This independence, which the proposed rule undermines, is the foundation of the nation\u2019s trust in USPS\u2019s ability to deliver the mail without fear or favor. The Postal Service acknowledged in a rulemaking just last year, \u201cthe Postal Service does not administer elections, establish the rules or deadlines that govern elections, or determine whether or how election jurisdictions utilize the mail.\u201d This neutral and apolitical role to transmit the mail is critical to ensuring American voters trust that their ballots will be properly delivered. The proposed rule would fundamentally upend this longstanding and vital role of USPS, transforming them into a federal election administration agency \u2013 with frightening authorities to disenfranchise Americans.\n\nThe proposed rule USPS issued on June 2 suffers from all the same legal deficiencies of the Executive Order and cannot be lawfully implemented. The proposed rule would illegally condition a state\u2019s exercise of its constitutional authority to utilize mail-in ballots on submitting its complete absentee voter rolls to USPS and complying with USPS mandatory election mail specifications. Specifically, the proposal requires any state that permits votes to be cast by mail to submit to USPS each absentee or mail-in voter\u2019s name, address, and their unique Intelligent Mail Barcode. The regulation purports to permit only states to control which of their voters are enrolled on the new master list, but this new and unnecessary master list of American voters would then be controlled by USPS and ultimately President Trump.\n\nIn addition, the proposed rule requires that all mail ballots comply with new mandatory specifications, including that they have an election mail logo, a specific design, automation compatibility, and an Intelligent Mail Barcode unique to each voter. All ballots must also undergo design review by USPS prior to being mailed by an election jurisdiction. While some of these requirements are best practices, their compulsory nature creates new onerous, costly, and unfunded requirements on election jurisdictions that do not currently use these practices nor have the resources to do so. Furthermore, the new mandatory specifications provide the USPS with new and subjective authority to reject ballots, even for a missing or misprinted logo.\n\nCritically, the proposed rule requires USPS to conduct a verification process to ensure that states comply with the regulation\u2019s mandates prior to USPS accepting ballots and mailing them to voters. For such a consequential regulation of American democracy, the regulation stunningly lacks any detailed information about the process USPS intends to use to verify each piece of outbound election mail. Nevertheless, this new \u201cverification process\u201d empowers USPS to serve as the final arbiter of whether ballots meet the unilateral federal standards and are adequate to be delivered to voters \u2013 granting USPS the ultimate authority to decide which Americans can cast a ballot by mail.\n\nWhat the proposal also makes clear is that if a state chooses not to provide USPS with their voter rolls that state cannot mail ballots to their voters, effectively prohibiting vote-by-mail in those states. Even if a state does provide USPS its voter rolls, USPS can still disenfranchise individual voters if their ballots do not meet USPS\u2019s demanding requirements. While \u201cneither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night\u201d stops the mail, under the regulation a missing election logo will. Nothing in federal law authorizes USPS to restrict states and voters from using the postal system to mail ballots.\n\nThis proposed regulation occurs as the federal government is demanding nearly every state\u2019s voter rolls \u2013 an effort which has consistently been rejected by federal courts. Creating a master absentee voter list for the entire country is a backdoor mechanism to secure access to these voters\u2019 names and addresses. And for states with universal vote-by-mail like California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and Vermont (in general elections), the proposed regulation is a form of extreme coercion. It creates an untenable scenario, that requires these states to submit their entire voter rolls to the federal government or face the prospects of abandoning absentee voting altogether.\n\nFurthermore, the proposed regulation explicitly articulates that one of its purposes is to assist federal law enforcement, raising serious legal and policy questions about how this information will be used. In fact, the Administration has acknowledged in recent court filings that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is currently having conversations with the Postal Service on how it could use the new master list of absentee voters and potentially compare it to DHS datasets. Given the ongoing efforts of the Administration to seek voter rolls and put them through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services\u2019 Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program, this coordination could lead to the USPS data being used in coordination with other risky and unreliable sources of information to disenfranchise American voters or even target voters or election officials for investigation.\n\nThe proposed rule also raises serious privacy concerns. Ultimately, the proposed rule seeks to create a centralized national absentee voter database with individualized barcodes connected to the voters\u2019 names under the control of the President that contains the voting information of millions of Americans. That information would be ripe for potential abuse or improper disclosure potentially imperiling the integrity of American elections. The proposal provides no discussion of how USPS would safeguard this crucial information and every American\u2019s right to a secret ballot. USPS simply states that its explanation of its privacy controls is \u201cforthcoming.\u201d Compiling a master list of mail-in and absentee voter data is incredibly dangerous in the modern era.\n\nLastly, notwithstanding the regulation\u2019s major constitutional and legal violations, the proposed timeline and scope is not feasible. The proposed regulation demands that the Postal Service set up an entirely new system and database to process and transmit millions of absentee ballots that is secure and accessible to every American election official, just months prior to a general election. The Postal Service already issued its election mail guidance in January, and states and local governments have been planning accordingly \u2013 they will have no ability to change course to respond to this rule. This endeavor will also allegedly be accomplished without any dedicated resources or funding at a time when the Postal Service\u2019s finances are under immense strain. In fact, the Postal Service has recently suspended regular retirement contributions and placed limits on all non-essential spending. As such, it is wholly unworkable and impractical.\n\nAccordingly, we insist that the Postal Service abandon this proposed regulation and return to its core mission of providing universal postal services to every American. The Constitution and federal law demand nothing less.\n\nSincerely,\n\n###", 1, "2026-06-26T06:29:35Z", "2026-06-26T06:31:46Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/press-releases/baldwin-colleagues-demand-usps-abandon-effort-to-carry-out-trumps-illegal-executive-order-restricting-vote-by-mail"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7813069969415665, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}