{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://cleaver.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-cleaver-joins-colleagues-calling-president-biden-fill-postal-board", "Rep. Cleaver Joins Colleagues Calling on President Biden to Fill Postal Board Seats to Address Mail Delays, Stop Harmful Price Hikes", "2024-02-02", "2024", "2024-02", "Democrat", "House", "MO", "Emanuel Cleaver", "C001061", "cleaver.house.gov", "cleaver", "https://cleaver.house.gov/media-center/press-releases", "scraper", "(Washington, D.C.) \u2013 Today, U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO) joined Congressmen Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), along with more than 75 other House Democrats, in urging President Biden to quickly fill two open vacancies on the United States Postal Service\u2019s (USPS) Board of Governors to address unacceptable mail delays and halt harmful price hikes caused by Postmaster General Dejoy\u2019s Delivering For America Plan.\n\nIn a letter to the President, the lawmakers wrote:\n\n\u201cAmerica deserves a postal service that serves all our communities and prioritizes needs of those who are too often forgotten, including rural Americans, tribal communities, seniors, and small businesses. The actions of current postal leadership are deeply concerning.\u201d\n\nThe lawmakers continued:\n\n\u201cNow more than ever, it is important that the Board of Governors have a full, diverse, and future-oriented Postal Board of Governors in place that will uphold its mission of public service. In filling the Board vacancies, we urge you to nominate Postal Governor candidates who will hold leadership accountable and advocate strongly for the protection and expansion of Postal Service services\u2014services that are essential to working class families and small businesses who depend on prompt, reliable, affordable delivery no matter their ZIP code.\u201d\n\nIn 2021, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced his Delivering for America Plan to make the USPS more efficient, competitive, and profitable, forecasting the agency to break even in Fiscal Year 2023. Despite the reforms and rate increases included in the Delivering for America Plan, not only did the USPS not break even, the agency lost $6.5 billion last fiscal year. Furthermore, the USPS expects to lose another $6.3 billion in Fiscal Year 2024, even after accounting for additional price increases on stamps.\n\nSince the Postmaster General\u2019s appointment, Congressmen Cleaver and Sam Graves (R-MO) have voiced numerous concerns with the USPS about performance issues in Western Missouri. Last week, Congressmen Cleaver and Graves led a cohort of lawmakers calling on the USPS to halt price increases on stamps, following the agency\u2019s record-breaking fourth rate increase in the last eighteen months.\n\nIn October 2022, Reps. Cleaver and Graves sent a letter to Postmaster General Dejoy expressing concerns about the agency\u2019s failure to fulfill their congressionally mandated duty to provide six-day mail delivery. In December 2022, the Postal Service responded with complaints about low unemployment rates in the Kansas City region and encouraged residents to apply to work on the USPS, without offering a plan for the agency to meet their mandate. This must be addressed and a plan in place prior to raising prices for consumers.\n\nIn March 2023, Reps. Cleaver and Graves called on Postmaster General DeJoy to deliver a plan to address mail delivery delays, fulfill the USPS\u2019s legal obligation to deliver mail 6 days per week, and listen to the concerns of Kansas City residents that had been frustrated with the performance of their local USPS branches. Following that letter, the USPS OIG announced they would conduct an audit of delayed mail and delivery operations in the Northland and the Kansas City area. The audit was completed in August of last year.\n\nThe official letter from lawmakers is available here.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T20:21:00Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://cleaver.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-cleaver-joins-colleagues-calling-president-biden-fill-postal-board"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8455500937998295, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}