WASHINGTON – Today, during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) questioned Postmaster General David Steiner on the lack of home mail delivery in San Luis, Arizona. The city’s sole post office has been overwhelmed by decades of explosive population growth and worsened by congestion at the nearby border crossing.
“In San Luis, Arizona, the Postal Service does not provide home or mail delivery. That means residents are forced to retrieve mail from a P.O. box at a local post office. Forty years ago, San Luis was 2,000 people. It is now 35,000 people,” said Senator Gallego. “As a result, San Luis’s sole post office is heavily congested and running out of space and capacity.”
Senator Gallego said he has heard repeatedly from constituents affected by the lack of delivery service, including residents working multiple jobs and disabled veterans waiting on their benefit checks.
“We’ve been asking the post office for almost generations now. Do you think that the post office can find the time, the money, and the focus to actually add more home delivery in this booming town of 35,000?” Senator Gallego asked Postmaster General Steiner.
In response, Steiner acknowledged the tension between rising delivery points and falling mail volumes nationwide, telling Gallego: “We can do whatever you want. We will do whatever you want. Who’s going to pay?” He added that he was “glad to personally take a look at the situation,” while noting he has to weigh individual cases against the Postal Service’s broader network of 170 million delivery points yearly.
Senator Gallego rejected the framing that cost alone should determine whether San Luis residents get equal service.
“In terms of money, that rings very hollow to these communities when they see ballrooms, they see jets, they see stupid wars getting started, and all this money being spent, and all they’re asking is for what everyone else gets,” said Senator Gallego. “They see all the other communities around them, and they all get home delivery of things that they need now. And now especially what we’re seeing with the increase in home delivery of prescription drugs, we’re literally affecting people’s health.”
Senator Gallego invited the Postmaster General to see the impact firsthand.
“Come down to San Luis, Arizona. Come down at 4pm and see what these residents have been dealing with for almost 40 years,” said Senator Gallego. “These families are really being affected.”
Steiner agreed to continue the conversation with Senator Gallego’s office.
Today, Senator Gallego also joined Democrats in demanding the United States Postal Service (USPS) abandon its proposed rule to implement President Trump’s unconstitutional executive order to restrict voting by mail.