Missouri Congresswoman Ann Wagner Archives

Four Missouri U.S. House members vote to give $25 billion to help keep Postal Service afloat

September 1, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

The U.S. House recently passed a bill that would give $25 billion in emergency funding to help keep the U.S. Postal Service going through the pandemic and expected surge of mail closer to the General Election. The funding level is the amount the Trump-appointed U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors recommends. Four Missouri members voted in favor of the legislation – Republicans Sam Graves and Ann Wagner and Democrats Emanuel Cleaver and Lacy Clay.

The plan would also reverse recent cost-cutting measures to slow service.

Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver

The Postal Service has been struggling financially due to a decline in mail volume, the pandemic causing costs to climb, among other things. Cleaver, who represents Kansas City and several rural western Missouri counties, has been sounding the alarm for a while about the agency’s money problems. He says talks of privatizing it is an insult to the older.

“I just think that that’s almost mean spirited,” he says. “We don’t even think about the older people in our country who are not online, who still handwrite all their letters and pay their bills by writing out checks.”

Cleaver co-sponsored the bill, H.R. 8015. He tells Missourinet privatization would also hurt rural communities.

“When you privatize it, can you imagine X corporation delivering mail to a little farm outside of Orrick, where they have to drive from Kansas City to Orrick and then drive down a dirt road to put the mail in a mailbox? They are not going to do it. They are going to say it is not cost efficient – it’s cost prohibitive,” says Cleaver.

Cleaver’s district includes rural towns like Marshall, Richmond and Belton.

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Tarkio, represents 36 counties in northern Missouri (file photo courtesy of Congressman Graves’ office)

Graves, of northern Missouri, tells Missourinet affiliate KFEQ the legislation affects almost every part of his district.

“The post office is something that I’ve been looking at and working through for years,” says Graves. “I have a very rural district and a lot of senior citizens in my district that depend on postal and making sure that we keep six-day delivery out there and timely.”

Graves’ district includes Chillicothe and Memphis.

President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the bill – and Graves says he and the president don’t always agree on everything.

“This is one of those issues and that’s been the case with every president that I’ve worked with. Whether that was Bush, I didn’t agree with him on everything. Obama, I didn’t agree with him on everything. And obviously President Trump,” says Graves. “We don’t agree on everything as well and that’s part of what representation is. I have the opportunity to be very parochial with my district and I can look out for, and always have, for the interest of my district.”

Graves says in this election, it’s unfortunate that the Postal Service has become political.

Missouri Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler and Congressmen Billy Long, Blaine Luetkemeyer and Jason Smith all voted against the plan.

It is expected to have an uphill battle in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, has said the delivery of mail-in ballots was a “nonexistent problem.”

Missouri Congressional candidate says she wants to restore values under attack

August 21, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

Sen. Jill Schupp, D-Creve Coeur

The Democratic National Convention has wrapped up in Milwaukee. Due to COVID-19, most convention events have been held online.

A race to watch this November is Missouri’s 2nd Congressional district seat. Democrat Jill Schupp is campaigning to unseat Republican Congresswoman Ann Wagner. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report considers the race a toss up at this point.

During a state Democratic Party online event last night, Schupp vowed to work across the aisle and treat her colleagues like her neighbors.

“As I look at the world around us, I see the very things my father believed in coming under malicious attack – honesty, community, humility, decency, the post office for goodness sake. And I do not see my opponent, Congresswoman Ann Wager, defending any of these things,” she says.

Schupp, who currently serves in the state Senate, is from the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur. In 2014, she narrowly defeated Republican Jay Ashcroft for her state Senate seat. In 2016, Ashcroft went on to become Missouri’s Secretary of State.

Schupp says Republicans are not working to resolve problems that Missourians care about.

Congresswoman Ann Wagner

“My opponent and her allies in Washington are spinning, instead of working on jobs, and healthcare, and COVID, and the cost of prescription drugs, education, the environment,” says Schupp.

Congresswoman Ann Wagner, who takes on Schupp in November, says Democrats are spending millions to “buy her seat and silence conservatives everywhere”. Wagner says she has spent her time in Congress protecting the most vulnerable.

Wagner’s district includes parts of St. Louis, St. Charles and Jefferson counties.

Missourinet will also feature a variety of Missourians during next week’s Republican National Convention.