Thread by @j_remy_green, Today, @Ali_Najmi and I decided to make some good trouble with @MondaireJones, [...]

Today, @Ali_Najmi and I decided to make some good trouble with @MondaireJones, @SenatorBiaggi, @warsnotover, @ChrisWBurdick, & @sethmrosen. We sued Trump and DeJoy to save #USPS.

And – nerd that I am – I want to talk a little more about Post Office history.

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So you can follow along, here's the complaint, starting the suit, which we'll be working our way through some of:

https://femmelaw.com/s/1-2020-08-17-Jones-v-USPS-Complaint.pdf

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Let's start with some legal groundwork.

The post office is a "basic fundamental service." And as Justice Holmes put it, using mail is "almost as much a part of free speech as the right to use our tongues." So... It's important, then.

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It's definitely worth pausing there. Think about what you've heard about the Post Office and how it doesn't make a profit. Well. Who cares? It's a "fundamental service PROVIDED to the people BY the Government" (caps mine).

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BUT OKAY I PROMISED HISTORY, LET'S DO IT.

As a starting point, let me candidly admit: I started with @99piorg / @romanmars / @katiemingle's brilliant and delightful podcast on this (which tracks Winifred Gallagher's 2016 book). https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-revolutionary-post/

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The Revolutionary Post - 99% Invisible

There are currently more than 31,000 post offices in the United States. Some are grand old ones that take up entire city blocks. Others are smaller—hidden away in the backs of general stores and in...

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-revolutionary-post/

I mention that in part because @99piorg, like our complaint, starts with the story of a tiny little post office at the BOTTOM OF THE GRAND CANYON. Where mail has to travel ON MULES. For two-and-a-half-hours. (one is tempted to add: "uphill, both ways, in the snow.")

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But how did we get here? Well, our old friend Ben Franklin had something to do with it.

(note: yes, I know, Franklin doesn't actually appear in Hamilton... BUT DANCING! SINGING!)

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Franklin, previously the Postmaster General for the Crown, was dismissed by the Crown after the Boston Tea Party -- protesting, you guessed it, the "Stamp Act."

So, the colonies turn around and put Franklin at the head of their own Post Office. NYEH.

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The prime concern at that time was that the Crown's Post Office was interfering with revolutionary mail. So, rather than allowing private papers (helloooooo Fourth Amendment) to be read by the Crown, the Continental Congress created a new institution for "intelligence."

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But its benefits didn't stop at intelligence. I'll let George Washington, Benjamin Rush, and AMAZING historian Winifred Gallagher (her book, "How the Post Office Created America," is so, so good) explain:

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And to zoom in on something important, let's talk about "sine qua non."

Sine qua non is literally "without which, none" -- and is pretentious lawyer-speak for "WE ABSOLUTELY NEED THIS THING TO DO THE OTHER THING."

And "the thing" here? BEING A DANG NATION.

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And look. We could go on. Did the Post Office basically create the transportation industry? Yes. Did it enable nationwide coordination by Abololitionists? Also yes. Could I find probably 100 pages more of examples? Also also yes (cf. my banner image).

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"Okay, fine, Remy," you say, "but what about the Supreme Court? Aren't they usually a big deal when you litigate?"

Oh, you want some Supreme Court thinking about the Post Office? I've got it, footnotes and all.

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Note: I don't make promises like this one when I can't back them up.

But rather than just review what the Supreme Court has said, let's play a game of compare and contrast...

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Hmmmm.

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HmmMMMmMMMMm.

Gosh, that sure sounds like a "condition" to me.

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ANYWAY, I promised footnotes (trust me, the thing that really makes Twitter threads go viral is footnotes!). Remember that Justice Holmes dissent? Dissents are usually things you don't cite -- being in dissent means that view lost, after all...

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But it turns out later courts have decided Justice Holmes was right on this one.

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And digging in on some of the other cases, reading the Supreme Court's footnotes gets us further (I know, just using my own footnote would be cheating)...

See Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 US 301 (1965), footnote 3:

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So that brings us back to where we are in this suit.

The President and Postmaster General are taking steps that -- whether accidentally or intentionally -- are going to cripple this core, democratic institution.

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If the Supreme Court follows the path past Courts have taken -- recognizing that the Post Office is "almost as much a part of free speech as the right to use our tongues" -- when we inevitably get there, the Post Office will be safe, as will our right to vote.

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If not?

Well, perhaps they will make the Constitution just "so toothless" after all.

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