Increasing Citizen Participation in U.S. Postal Service Policy Making: A Model Act to Create a Post Office Consumer Action Group Comment 42 Buffalo Law Review 1994

42 Buff. L. Rev. 253 (1994)
Increasing Citizen Participation in U.S. Postal Service Policy Making: A Model Act to Create a Post Office Consumer Action Group

handle is hein.journals/buflr42 and id is 261 raw text is: Increasing Citizen Participation in
U.S. Postal Service Policy Making:
A Model Act to Create a Post Office
Consumer Action Group
JOSEPH W. BELLUCK*
I. INTRODUCTION'
Today's political environment is characterized by an increasing
awareness about the rise of special interest control over our coun-
try's regulatory apparatus and the resulting isolation individual
citizens feel from both the legislative and administrative processes
of federal and state governments.2 Consumer advocate Ralph Nader
has commented that the administration of laws is subject to insta-
bilities, including the selective enforcement of laws (based on cam-
pagin contributions), that invite public cynicism and lower public
expectation levels that help hold regulatory agencies accountable.3
As corporate lobbies increasingly stall actions by legislatures and
regulatory agencies, and frame, to their benefit, the content of those
laws and regulations that are issued,4 citizens have become anes-
thetized to abuses of public trust by government officials.5
* J.D. Candidate, University at Buffalo School of Law, May, 1994. While any errors
of fact or judgment should be attributed solely to the author, it must be acknowledged
that a substantial portion of the ideas and information in this article was gathered and
developed by Ralph Nader's Center for Study of Responsive Law at which the author was
employed from 1989-1991. Ralph Nader and the Center developed and refined the concept
of consumer action groups and continue to advocate for their establishment. The Center
can be contacted at P.O. Box 19367, Washington, D.C., 20036
1. This Introduction, as well as the sections of this paper that discuss consumer ac-
tion groups, were adapted from Joseph W. Belluck, Increasing Consumer Participation In
State Utility Regulatory Proceedings, A.B.A. SEC. PUB. SERV. L. REP. (forthcoming).
2. See generally DONALD L. BARTLETT & JAIES B. STEELE, AMERICA WHAT WENT
WRONG? (1992); WILLIAI GREIDER, WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE? (1992).
3. See Ralph Nader, The Consumer Movement Looks Ahead, in BEYOND REAGAN:
ALTERNATIVES FOR THE '80S, 271 (Alan Gartner, et al. ed., 1984).
4. See BARTLETr & STEELE, supra note 2, at 191. See also GREIDER, supra note 2, at
106. Greider provides numerous examples of regulations stalled by federal agencies, in-
cluding the Food and Drug Administration, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department
of Labor, Department of Defense, Department of Transportation and the Environmental
Protection Agency. Id. at 112-13.
5. See BERNARD ROSEN, HOLDING GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACIES ACCOUNTABLE 161
(1989).

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