Reid cites seniors' love of junk mail to argue for passage of postal reform bill

By Daniel Strauss - 04/18/12 10:16 AM ET

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) cited seniors' love of junk mail in urging passage of a United States Postal Service reform bill.

In his opening speech on Wednesday, Reid called on the Senate to quickly move forward on the passage of S. 1789, the 21st Century Postal Service Act, which restructures pension plans for Postal Service employees as well as allows the USPS to access overpayments in the Federal Employee Retirement System.

"Madam President," Reid said to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the presiding officer of the Senate, "I'll come home tonight here to my home in Washington and there'll be some mail there. A lot of it is what some people refer to as junk mail, but for the people who are sending that mail, it's very important.

"And when talking about seniors, seniors love getting junk mail. It's sometimes their only way of communicating or feeling like they're part of the real world," Reid continued. "Elderly Americans, more than anyone in America, rely on the United States Postal Service, but unless we act quickly, thousands of post offices ... will close. I've said this earlier today; I repeat it."

On Tuesday, Reid blocked Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) from adding an amendment to the postal service bill that would cut off U.S. funding to Egypt. Reid used a Senate procedure called "filling the tree" to keep Paul's amendment from coming to the floor, arguing that Paul's bill had nothing to do with saving the Postal Service.

Later on Tuesday, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) both urged their chamber to come to some kind of compromise on amendments to move the legislation forward.

In his speech on Wednesday, Reid signaled that he would be open to adding some amendments to the bill.

"We're gonna offer amendments and we should do that as quickly as possible to move forward on this legislation," Reid said. "If there's no agreement, we'll have to vote on the substitute amendment tomorrow morning. It'll be too bad if we can't get it done."

Reid announced Tuesday evening that the Senate would vote on a motion to proceed on S. 1789 on Thursday.