The House Democratic leadership held a call late Saturday to discuss the possibility, three House Democratic aides and a source familiar with the matter said. There was significant support for bringing the House back on that call but no final decision was made.
"Yes there are discussions to bring the House back to address the Postal Service crisis. Timing (is) not clear yet. Next week and week after (are) being discussed," one of the aides said.
Possible action by the House could include forbidding the Postal Service to change sorting devices, prevent the closure of facilities, stopping any effort to end overtime pay or changing the timing of mail delivery, one of the sources said. Democrats also may push language requiring all ballot deliveries to have first class status.
The issue is that members are getting heavily criticized in their districts during this recess period for not coming back and trying to do something about the postal issue. The open question that leadership is trying to figure out is whether or not it will be looked at as purely political to pass a measure that they know won't make it through the Republican-controlled Senate.
CNN and other news organizations reported that in the last week, the USPS has removed letter collection boxes in at least four states: New York, Oregon, Montana and Indiana.
Representatives at the United States Postal Service's national headquarters in Washington were still unable to confirm whether they would stop removing letter collection boxes as of Saturday afternoon.
Rod Spurgeon, a USPS spokesperson for the service's Western region, told CNN on Friday night that postal employees in 16 states and parts of two others would stop the removal of letter collection boxes until after the election.
But it's unclear whether or not the policy confirmed by Spurgeon is still in effect or if they will be returning the removed letter collection boxes to their previous locations.
CNN has reached out to Spurgeon for an update, and repeated inquiries to other regional and state USPS spokespersons went unanswered.
CNN also reported that the USPS began notifying postal workers in at least three states - West Virginia, Florida and Missouri - that they will start to reduce their retail operating hours, according to union officials.
On Friday afternoon, USPS spokesperson Kim Frum suggested the removal, and installation, of the almost 142,000 letter collection boxes nationwide was routine, and "has been based on mail volume received in those boxes."
Frum said that the postal service has been putting more emphasis on stabilizing the number in use and moving "low-use boxes to high traffic areas." She has not responded to CNN's questions about the reduced hours in West Virginia, Florida and Missouri.
The removal of the letter collection boxes drew intense criticism from Democrats, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who called the removal "bizarre" during an online fundraiser Friday evening.
Lawmakers from both parties and postal union leaders have sounded alarms over disruptive changes instituted by DeJoy this summer, including eliminating overtime and slowing some mail delivery. Democrats claim he is intentionally undermining postal service operations to sabotage mail-in voting in the November election - a charge he denies.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats were pushing to include $25 billion for USPS in the next stimulus bill because that was what was requested by the bipartisan board of governors who run USPS and were appointed by Trump.
This story has been updated with additional information.
