ATLANTA — The U.S. postmaster general will be subject to term limits and Senate confirmation under legislation introduced Wednesday by Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga.

Ossoff has been highly critical of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy since reports emerged earlier this year of months-long delays in the delivery of mail processed at a new regional distribution center in Fulton County.

The senator said during a committee hearing in April that only 36 percent of incoming mail processed at the center was delivered on time, delaying prescriptions, delaying rent and mortgage payments and preventing businesses from shipping products or receiving deliveries in a timely manner.

“What we saw last year at Georgia State was an abysmal performance,” Ossoff said Wednesday. “We need to hold the postmaster general accountable.”

The Postmaster General Reform Act would limit the position to two consecutive five-year terms. The Senate would hold confirmation hearings on the president's nominee for postmaster general both before his first term and between his first and second terms.

Postmaster General was a Cabinet position nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate until the U.S. Postal Service became an independent agency in 1971. Since then, the postmaster general has been selected by the agency's board of governors.

But Ossoff said the office is too important to be left to unelected officials.

“This is a job that impacts our daily lives so much that elected officials need the opportunity to ask questions,” he said. “There needs to be a real interview.”

DeJoy testified at the April hearing that the delays in mail processing and delivery in Georgia were due to problems that arose during the rollout last winter of a restructuring plan aimed at making the Postal Service economically self-sufficient.

Shortly after the hearing, DeJoy put the restructuring plan on hold to give the Postal Service time to figure out what went wrong and how to fix the problem.

He also announced specific solutions for the Fulton County center in Palmetto, including bringing in more than 100 employees from other centers and revising transportation schedules between the Palmetto facility and other local mail processing centers.

In June, DeJoy reported improvements in service, but Georgians continue to complain about delays in sending and receiving mail.