Congressmen Aderholt and Cleaver Introduce Bipartisan Deliver for Democracy Act

Congressmen Robert B. Aderholt (R-AL) and Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO) introduced the Deliver for Democracy Act (H.R. 9078) in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 23. The bill is identical to the Senate version (S. 4378) introduced by Senators Peter Welch (D-VT) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) on May 21. The bill will:

1. Require the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to either achieve at least a 95% on-time delivery rate for periodicals (as highlighted in their own plan) or an improvement of at least 2 percentage points to use its 2% surcharge authority for that class of mail.
2. Require USPS to annually report to the Postal Regulatory Commission on its progress including on-time delivery data for newspapers in its periodical service performance measurement; and
3. Instruct the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a study and submit a report to Congress on options for alternate USPS pricing schemes to improve the cost margins with periodicals.

The following members of Congress have cosponsored this legislation: Jerry Carl (R-AL), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), Jim Costa (D-CA), Angie Craig (D-MN), Donald Davis (D-NC), Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA), Anthony D'Esposito (R-NY), Henry C. "Hank" Johnson, Jr. (D-GA), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-CA), Wiley Nickel (D-NC), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Shri Thanedar (D-MI), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Joe Wilson (R-SC).

The Alliance has been actively working with the bill sponsors as well as other members of the U.S. Senate and Congress on the legislation.