U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, speaks during a Downtown Sioux Falls Rotary event on Oct. 28, 2024. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – About two years ago, U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, started hearing increasing complaints about slow mail delivery. Veterans weren’t receiving their prescriptions on time, he said, or medications got lost on the way. Some people said they received bills on the day payments were due. Newspaper publishers said it took over a week for papers to travel less than 100 miles away, and some reported lost deliveries.
Rounds took his frustrations to the postmaster general, who resigned not long after their meeting. Rounds then brought his complaints to the new postmaster general, “who basically pooh-poohed our concerns” and said “the bigger problems were in the bigger cities,” Rounds recalled.
Growing increasingly frustrated, Rounds concluded a letter about the matter to fellow senators in June by writing “I am forwarding this to you via email because if I mailed it, you may not receive this letter in a timely fashion.”
The senator’s recent actions in response to the problems include supporting an investigation into the Postal Service, proposing legislation to remove bonuses for Postal Service executives, and placing a hold on Senate confirmations of new members for the Postal Service’s executive board.
Investigation underway
In December, Rounds asked the Inspector General of the U.S. Postal Service to investigate the state’s mail delivery problems.
“They cautioned us that they would have to do this somewhat in a clandestine manner because they couldn’t trust that the post office wouldn’t try to hide mail if they knew they were coming in to inspect,” Rounds said, “which is exactly what we have found out to be true.”
Rounds said he’s heard from post office workers who say when there’s a potential for the inspector general to show up, employees are directed to hide undelivered mail.
“So, we’ve really appreciated the help from postal employees who have been frustrated by the inability of the post office to honor the commitment that they’ve made in the past,” Rounds said.
A report from the investigation should be available in September, according to Rounds.
Legislation introduced
Recent changes to processing procedures have deprioritized rural America in an effort to save costs, Rounds said.
Two years ago, Postal Service leaders decided to move all non-local mail processing from the Huron, South Dakota, processing facility to Fargo, North Dakota. Rounds and fellow South Dakota Republicans Sen. John Thune and Rep. Dusty Johnson pushed then-Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to reconsider. Due in part to that effort, the Postal Service announced last year that it would keep some processing at the Huron site.
In 2025, the Postal Service began its Regional Transportation Optimization initiative. That means mail dropped off at post offices more than 50 miles from a regional hub will only be transported to processing centers once per day, instead of two or more, which means some mail is delayed. The initiative is expected to save millions of dollars, according to the National Association of Postal Supervisors.
The Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent oversight agency, found the new initiative negatively impacts rural communities. In 2025, about 64% of rural communities were anticipated to experience slowed service.
Rounds said he has tested the speed of mail delivery in South Dakota. He sent a letter from his office in Rapid City to his office in Pierre. It left the state and passed through Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa and North Dakota before being delivered at his Pierre office over a 10-day stretch of time, he said.
“It was evident that they had not counted on the length of time it takes to truck over long distances that amount of mail,” Rounds said. “First-class mail is supposed to be delivered in three days. It’s taking closer to 10 for a lot of the mail in South Dakota.”
Continued problems with mail delivery led Rounds to introduce the Executive Benefit and Bonus Removal Act, which would eliminate bonuses for Postal Service executives.
“Incompetent bureaucrats should not get bonuses when the mail does not run on time,” Rounds said. “If the Postal Service were serious about cutting costs, it should cut costs inside its own ivory tower before passing costs on to the American people who are still receiving terrible service.”
Hold on nominations
In addition to his legislation, Rounds has placed a hold on all Senate confirmations of nominees for Postal Service Board of Governor positions.
Senators can hold bills and nominations, sometimes out of process-related concerns or to gain leverage while negotiating with agencies or colleagues. The decision to honor a hold request ultimately rests with the majority leader — Thune. Rounds’ move is known as a “blanket hold,” objecting to the approval of all nominations for a specific government agency.
“It is my intent to only release this blanket hold when my concerns are fully resolved by USPS leadership and service returns to levels at least equal to the days of the Pony Express,” Rounds said in a letter.
The Board of Governors acts as a board of directors. A full board has 11 members, but there are five unfilled positions. President Donald Trump nominated one person last June and announced three nominations in March.
Issues facing the Postal Service
In a June Senate hearing on the “Postal Service’s broken business model,” Postmaster General David Steiner reviewed the Postal Service’s challenges and said “levers available to private sector enterprises and to government agencies are unavailable to the Postal Service.”
“In a normal business model, if 70% of routes are losing money, you would adjust the routes. In a normal business model, if 60% of the stores you had were losing money, you’d close them,” Steiner said. “We’re not allowed to do either. That is a broken business model.”
To learn more about Rounds’ involvement with the Postal Service and other priorities in the U.S. Senate, listen to his interview on Searchlight Report, a podcast from South Dakota Searchlight.
Without help from Congress to raise the price of stamps and packages and increase the amount of money the Postal Service can borrow from the federal government, Steiner said the post office’s ability to deliver mail is threatened.
Meanwhile, the Postal Service is under pressure from President Trump to participate in his proposed restrictions on voting by mail. His March 31 executive order told the post office to refuse to deliver ballots in states that don’t provide lists of voters and to only send and receive ballots that include tracking barcodes, but courts have blocked the order and the Trump administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider an appeal.
The Postal Service did not immediately respond to South Dakota Searchlight’s request for comment on Rounds’ legislation, nomination holds and criticisms.
Brian Bengs, an independent challenging Rounds in the Nov. 3 election, called former Postmaster General DeJoy the “worst postmaster general in history,” and told Searchlight that Rounds “sat by for years” while DeJoy “laid the foundation of today’s problems.”
“It’s past time for Postal Service management and the board of directors to be held accountable, and I find it convenient Mike has only come around to that idea during an election year,” Bengs said.
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