The bill
To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 216 Cumberland Street in Rochester, New York, as the "Minister Franklin Florence Memorial Post Office".
HR. 397, 119th Congress.
Sponsored by
Rep. Morelle, Joseph D. [D-NY-25]
ID: M001206
Follow the money
The bill
HR. 397, 119th Congress.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
22 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Department of Homeland Security" section, p. 168-170 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Ordered to be Reported by the Yeas and Nays: 23 - 15.
April 29, 2025
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the esteemed members of Congress. Let's dissect this trainwreck, shall we?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** Ah, yes, the main purpose is to stroke the ego of Minister Franklin Florence and his adoring fans in Rochester, New York. The objective? To waste taxpayer dollars on a meaningless gesture that will be forgotten by next week.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** Oh boy, this one's a doozy! Section 1(a) designates the post office at 216 Cumberland Street as the "Minister Franklin Florence Memorial Post Office". Wow, what a bold move. I bet the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. And just to make sure we don't miss any opportunities for bureaucratic redundancy, Section 1(b) ensures that all references to this facility will be updated to reflect its new, utterly irrelevant name.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** Let's see... Minister Franklin Florence's family and friends will get a warm fuzzy feeling from this pointless exercise. The good people of Rochester might experience a brief moment of civic pride before they realize it's just another example of their tax dollars being squandered on trivialities. And, of course, the United States Postal Service gets to waste more resources on unnecessary signage and paperwork.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** *yawn* Oh, I'm sure this will have a profound impact on the nation. Just think about it: with this monumental designation, the post office at 216 Cumberland Street will become an iconic symbol of... well, nothing in particular. It won't create jobs, stimulate economic growth, or improve the lives of Americans in any tangible way. But hey, who needs substance when you can have empty symbolism?
Diagnosis: This bill is a classic case of "Ego-itis" – a disease characterized by an excessive need for self-aggrandizement and a complete disregard for the well-being of others. The symptoms include pointless gestures, bureaucratic waste, and a healthy dose of hypocrisy.
Treatment: A strong dose of reality, followed by a healthy injection of fiscal responsibility and a dash of common sense. But let's be real, this is Congress we're talking about – they'll just prescribe more of the same old nonsense and call it a day.
Rep. Morelle, Joseph D. [D-NY-25]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 10 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: G000597
Top Contributors
10
ID: M001137
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ID: M000317
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ID: L000599
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ID: T000478
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ID: R000579
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ID: G000599
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ID: T000469
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ID: M001188
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ID: O000172
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Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 67 nodes and 37 connections (58 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $162,334
Showing top 21 donors by contribution amount
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"HR 397 is a purely ceremonial bill to rename a post office and contains no provisions related to Department of Homeland Security functions such as border security, protection of officials, transportation security, personnel restructuring, or grant compliance."
— 136 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Secure our coasts and economic zones; l Protect political leaders, their families, and visiting heads of state or government; and l Oversee transportation security. OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY (SEC) In the next Administration, the Office of the Secretary should take on the fol- lowing key issues and challenges to ensure the effective operation of DHS. Expansion of Dedicated Political Personnel. The Secretary of Homeland Security is a presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed political appointee, but for budgetary reasons, he or she has historically been unable to fund a dedi- cated team of political appointees. A key first step for the Secretary to improve front-office functions is to have his or her own dedicated team of political appoin- tees selected and vetted by the Office of Presidential Personnel, which is not reliant on detailees from other parts of the department, to help ensure the completion of the next President’s agenda. An Aggressive Approach to Senate-Confirmed Leadership Positions. While Senate confirmation is a constitutionally necessary requirement for appointing agency leadership, the next Administration may need to take a novel approach to the confirmations process to ensure an adequate and rapid transition. For example, the next Administration arguably should place its nominees for key positions into similar positions as “actings” (for example, putting in a person to serve as the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner of CBP while that person is going through the confirmation process to direct ICE or become the Secretary). This approach would both guarantee implementation of the Day One agenda and equip the department for potential emergency situations while still honoring the confirmation requirement. The department should also look to remove lower-level but nevertheless important positions that currently require Senate confirmation from the confirmation requirement, although this effort would require legislation (and might also be mooted in the event of legisla- tion that closes portions of the department that currently have Senate-confirmed leadership). Clearer, More Durable, and Political-Only Line of Succession. Based on previous experience, the department needs legislation to establish a more durable but politically oriented line of succession for agency decision-making purposes. The ideal sequence for line of succession is certainly debatable, except that in cir- cumstances where a career employee holds a leadership position in the department, that position should be deemed vacant for line-of-succession purposes and the next eligible political appointee in the sequence should assume acting authority. Further, — 137 — Department of Homeland Security individuals wielding acting Secretary authority should have explicit authority to finalize agency actions, including regulations, to ensure that the department’s homeland security mission is fulfilled. Soft Closure of Unnecessary Offices. Pending a possible presidential deci- sion to shrink or eliminate DHS itself, the next Administration will still have the obligation to protect the homeland as required by law. The Secretary therefore can and should use his or her inherent, discretionary leadership authority to “soft close” ineffective and problematic corners of the department. While those corners are to be determined, the Secretary could shift personnel, funding, and opera- tional responsibility to mission-essential components of the department, including the Office of the Secretary itself. This effort not only would make the department more efficient, but also would support a legislative move to shrink or dismantle the department by showing that the agency can fulfill national security–critical functions without its current bloated bureaucracy. Restructuring and Redistribution of Career Personnel. To strengthen political decision-making and ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used legally and efficiently, the Secretary should make major changes in the distribution of career personnel throughout the department. For example, personnel from parts of the department undergoing soft closure could be redistributed to what will be workload-intensive corners of the department, including national security–critical and transparency functions. All personnel with law enforcement capacity should be removed immediately from office billets and deployed to field billets to maxi- mize law enforcement capacity. Compliance for Grants and Other Federal Funding. The next Adminis- tration should take steps to restore lawfulness and integrity to the department’s massive regimen of federal grant programs, most of which are managed and dis- tributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Secretary should direct FEMA to ensure that all FEMA-issued grant funding for states, localities, and private organizations is going to recipients who are lawful actors, can demon- strate that they are in compliance with federal law, and can show that their mission and actions support the broader homeland security mission. All applicants and potential recipients of such grant funding should be required to meet certain pre- conditions for eligibility (except for receipt of post-disaster or nonhumanitarian funding) or should simply be considered ineligible for funding. Such preconditions should include at least the following: l Certification by applicants that they comply with all aspects of federal immigration laws, including the honoring of all immigration detainers. l Certification by applicants that they are both registered with E-Verify and using E-Verify in a transparent and nonevasive manner. For states
AI Analysis:
"The bill solely concerns naming a post office and contains no provisions related to Department of Homeland Security objectives, management directives, or homeland security policy."
— 169 — Department of Homeland Security 19. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General, Management Directive No. 0810.1, June 10, 2004, https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/foia/mgmt_directive_0810_1_the_office_of_inspector_general. pdf (accessed March 15, 2023). 20. H.R. 5005, Homeland Security Act of 2002, Public Law No. 107-296, 107th Congress, November 25, 2002, https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/5005 (accessed January 18, 2023). — 171 — 6 DEPARTMENT OF STATE Kiron K. Skinner The U.S. Department of State’s mission is to bilaterally, multilaterally, and regionally implement the President’s foreign policy priorities; to serve U.S. citizens abroad; and to advance the economic, foreign policy, and national security interests of the United States. Since the U.S. Founding, the Department of State has been the American gov- ernment’s designated tool of engagement with foreign governments and peoples throughout the world. Country names, borders, leaders, technology, and people have changed in the more than two centuries since the Founding, but the basics of diplomacy remain the same. Although the Department has also evolved throughout the years, at least in the modern era, there is one significant problem that the next President must address to be successful. There are scores of fine diplomats who serve the President’s agenda, often helping to shape and interpret that agenda. At the same time, however, in all Administrations, there is a tug-of-war between Presidents and bureaucracies— and that resistance is much starker under conservative Presidents, due largely to the fact that large swaths of the State Department’s workforce are left-wing and predisposed to disagree with a conservative President’s policy agenda and vision. It should not and cannot be this way: The American people need and deserve a diplomatic machine fully focused on the national interest as defined through the election of a President who sets the domestic and international agenda for the nation. The next Administration must take swift and decisive steps to reforge the department into a lean and functional diplomatic machine that serves the
AI Analysis:
"HR 397 is a ceremonial bill to rename a post office, which does not address any of the Department of Commerce reforms, streamlining, or policy objectives outlined in Project 2025 Section 21."
— 664 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise not an exhaustive set of proposals, the next conservative President should con- sider whether: l The International Trade Administration (ITA) and parts of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) should be streamlined and moved to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), along with the Development Finance Corporation; the U.S. Trade and Development Agency; the Export– Import Bank; and other trade-related programs spread across the federal government—as well as considering whether many of these programs should exist within the federal government; l The Economic Development Administration’s grant programs, which are among a broad set of duplicative and overlapping federal economic development grant programs, should be consolidated with other programs and/or eliminated; l The Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau, as well as the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, should be consolidated into a more manageable, focused, and efficient statistical agency; l The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) should be made into a performance-based organization under the Office of Management and Budget (OMB); l Alternatively, the USPTO should be consolidated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in a new U.S. Office of Patents, Trademarks, and Standards, with all non-mission-critical research functions eliminated or moved to other, more focused, federal agencies; and l The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories. Almost every element of the department can be viewed through this lens, but with today’s political reality and multiple competing congressional committee jurisdictions, drastic structural change to the department is neither imminent nor likely. Thus, this chapter largely accepts the baseline of today’s department and proposes a bold, but achievable, set of proposals for an incoming conservative Administration. Whatever the imperfections of the Department of Commerce, it is blessed with many quality civil servants and strong statutory authorities that, directed properly, — 665 — Department of Commerce can help ensure U.S. success in 2025 and beyond. With that in mind, this chapter focuses primarily on policy, strategy, and occasionally tactics that are either imme- diately implementable under strong leadership or are critical to mission success. OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY The Office of the Secretary (OS) is somewhat of a misnomer, as very few of the thousands of employees working in the office are dedicated to staffing the secretary and implementing Administration priorities. Rather, OS’s budget and full-time equivalents have increasingly been allocated to fulfill financial, human resources, administrative, information technology, contracting, and facilities functions, using outdated and inefficient systems. The Trump Administration began implement- ing key changes, such as updating financial management tools, but more must be done to digitize and modernize the department’s processes to free resources for secretarial and presidential priorities. The above drain on resources leaves the Secretary of Commerce to rely upon a few dozen direct support staff, supplemented with detailees and indirect fund- ing from each of the bureaus to execute the President’s agenda and manage the diverse functions of the department. This structure empowers career staff in each bureau and makes it harder to mandate change. As such, it is vitally important that an incoming Administration fully staff OS with political appointees, send all existing detailees back to their home bureaus on Day One, and replace those detailees with trusted and knowledgeable career staff on an as-needed basis. Department of Commerce leadership should also fight to restore direct fund- ing and additional political appointee positions to OS and its constituent parts involved in implementing and communicating the Commerce Secretary’s and President’s policy priorities. Administration, Budget, and Appropriations. Recent practice has been for career staff to serve as gatekeepers between department leadership and external budget and appropriations partners at the OMB and on Capitol Hill. By serving not just as a central point of contact but as the sole staff-level communicators of departmental priorities, these career officials can, have, and will slow down—and even stop—changes in policy, even at the line-office level. Although the following is true at all agencies, it is particularly important at the Department of Commerce that political leadership be immediately installed at the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Assistant Secretary for Administra- tion (ASA), and that political appointees receive a mandate to communicate with external partners alongside career staff at every stage of the budget and appropri- ations process. Political appointees must also monitor internal CFO operations down to the operating division level to ensure that funds are not being diverted to programs that do not align with Administration priorities, as has regularly hap- pened in years past.
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.