Professor Rep. Katie Porter Explains Why Louis DeJoy Is Failing as Post Master

Most of us have sufficient working memory of school such that we recall the grading scale, 90% above, an “A” and then by tens, we go down from there. Katie Porter was a law professor just as she entered Congress and thus retains a more functional memory of grading scales and used her familiarity with the process to explain to Louis DeJoy why she can statistically prove that he is failing as postmaster general.

Porter invoked grading:

The audit found that by the spring of 2020, mail delivery was right around 92 percent — that is 92 percent of the mail got there within the standard of on time,” said Porter in a hearing, holding up a whiteboard displaying the data. “That dropped to 80 percent by the fall of 2020, and by January of 2021 was hovering around 61 percent. I realize this has gone up somewhat since then, but I wanted to ask you, when did Mr. DeJoy take over as postmaster? Do you know?”

“The summer of 2020,” said the witness.

All of us with hazy memories of school can tell what is coming, what happens when one drops from above a 90% average to around 60%. It better involve an appendectomy or someone will be repeating that class. We haven’t seen any records indicating that DeJoy has required hospitalization lately.

Porter continued:

“I’m a professor, and I used to do a lot of grading,” said Porter. “And 92 is considered widely like an A-minus, 80 is considered hanging on, hanging on to the lowest possible B. 60 percent is at best a D-minus. The Postal Service delivers 48 percent of the world’s mail. It is an institution, it is a civic treasure. And we let it get all the way, what you found, is we let it get all the way down to that D-minus level.”

Had DeJoy been injected with truth serum, he might have told Rep. Porter that he was doing just as he was asked and was doing the job swimmingly.

DeJoy represents private carriers such as UPS, FedEx, and others. This was the working theory as to why Trump installed him in the first place. Of course, private carriers gain in viability with each step USPS takes down the reliability ladder. Seen in that light, DeJoy could have said that he was doing the job he was hired to do. Of course, that is not the type of testimony one would give to a professor like Porter, who would flag such a student for cheating, perhaps kicking the student out of school.

Watch:

On-time mail delivery has plummeted under Postmaster Louis DeJoy—forcing veterans to wait longer for prescriptions, seniors to scramble to pay bills without their Social Security checks, and communities to feel less connected.

Postmaster DeJoy needs to go. pic.twitter.com/NxVivkOQZt

— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) November 16, 2021

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest as a dual Canadian-American citizen, which he grows increasingly thankful for every day. He now enjoys life as a single dad, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast, getting advice from his beloved daughter and teammate. He is very much the dreamy mystic that cannot add and loves dogs more than most people. He also likes studying cooking, theoretical physics, cosmology, and quantum mechanics. He likes pizza.

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