Congress naming more and more post offices

Congress has spent an increasing amount of time naming post offices in recent years, according to a new study. 

Alan Robinson of the Courier Express and Postal Observer says that at least 15 percent of measures signed into the law in each of the last five Congresses named a post office. 

The Courier Express says that the practice spiked following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with many of the post offices being renamed for victims of the attacks of that day or soldiers that served in Iraq or Afghanistan. 

At the same time, as Robinson notes, lawmakers were unable to come together on a measure to revamp how the cash-strapped Postal Service operates in the last Congress. 

Congressional chambers have also started to increase their naming of post offices at a time when they have faced gridlock over pressing financial issues and other matters.

Top lawmakers from both parties and both chambers have said that they will continue to work together on the issue, with USPS having lost close to $16 billion in fiscal 2012 and defaulting on two separate payments to the Treasury as well. 

The 110th Congress, which spanned 2007 and 2008, named more than 100 post offices, accounting for more than 20 percent of the measures signed into law those two years.

Naming post offices didn’t account for more than 5 percent of the measures signed into law between the 93rd Congress in 1973 and 1974, during which President Nixon resigned, and the 105th Congress in 1997 and 1998, during President Clinton’s second term.

---