Minnesota Democrat Al Franken made a plea on the Senate floor Wednesday on behalf of 117 rural Minnesota post offices that are on the Postal Service's closure list for May 15. Also on the chopping block are five of the state's seven mail processing facilities, including Rochester, Mankato, Duluth, Bemidji and Waite Park. Reform legislation Franken is backing would forestall the cuts by tweaking postal pension and retiree health programs, stemming the post office's historic financial losses. He is also working on an initiative to arm local communities with new legal and administrative tools to fight post office closings. "The Post Office is in the Constitution," Franken said. "It has been around since the beginning of our country….The Postal Service gave you a connection to the outside world. Somehow, we have lost sight of that."
