Bush Threatens to Fire Postal Governors

President Bush, in an end-of-term test of his executive powers, challenged the Postal Service’s independence Monday by threatening to fire the nine presidential appointees who oversee the agency unless they withdraw a lawsuit filed without Justice Department approval.

Bush gave the governors until Wednesday to drop the suit, which challenges the right of the independent Postal Rate Commission to hold the price of a first-class stamp to 29 cents when the Postal Service wanted to raise it.

The President, in a blunt four-paragraph letter to each of the governors, said that, if they have not dropped the suit by Wednesday, “please inform me by that date of any reason why I should not remove you as a governor of the United States Postal Service.”

Postal authorities said the President’s action was unprecedented and represented the most direct effort by a President to manage the affairs of the semi-independent federal agency since it became a public corporation 21 years ago.

The nine governors, who are appointed to nine-year terms, were in a closed-door session at the agency’s L’Enfant Plaza headquarters Monday night and were not available for comment. White House officials also were unavailable.