# David Steiner **David Steiner** is the **76th Postmaster General** and chief executive of the [[USPS]]. The Postal Service Board of Governors appointed him on **May 9, 2025**, and he took office in **July 2025**, leaving the board of FedEx — where he had served since 2009 — on doing so. He was president and CEO of Waste Management for twelve years, from 2004 through late 2016. He is a corporate operator rather than a postal careerist, and his appointment came from the Board of Governors rather than by presidential nomination, which is how the office works: the Postmaster General is selected by the Governors, not confirmed by the Senate. ## Why he matters here Steiner is the official who promulgated **Ballot Mail for Federal Elections**, 91 FR 54966, the August 26, 2026 final rule implementing [[Executive Order 14399]]. That rule gave the Postal Service, for the first time, authority to refuse to carry a state's federal ballot mail — and produced the [[USPS Federal Ballot Mail Portal]], the system a whistleblower described as rushed past its own testing regime. On **August 31, 2026**, Senator [[Richard Blumenthal]] wrote to Steiner demanding answers by September 4 and records by September 8 about the Portal's development, including whether the Postal Service continued building it while under court order to stop. The Postal Service acknowledged the letter on September 1 and said it was reviewing the concerns. The structural point worth carrying forward: the rule's preamble states that "[c]onsiderations of Postal Service independence are not relevant to this rulemaking." An institution Congress built as an independent government corporation, run by an executive the President did not appoint, adopted an executive order's program and disclaimed its own insulation while doing so. > Status: stub — expand with his Waste Management and FedEx tenure, the Board of Governors composition that selected him, and the privatization debate he inherited. ## See Also - [[USPS]] — the agency he runs - [[USPS Federal Ballot Mail Portal]] · [[Executive Order 14399]] — the ballot-mail program - [[Richard Blumenthal]] — the oversight - [[Government Corporations Hub]] — the institutional form