{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-denounces-tyson-foods-attempt-to-silence-farmers/", "Hawley Denounces Tyson Foods\u2019 Attempt to Silence Farmers", "2024-12-20", "2024", "2024-12", "Republican", "Senate", "MO", "Josh Hawley", "H001089", "www.hawley.senate.gov", "hawley", "https://www.hawley.senate.gov/press-releases/page/", "scraper", "Today, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King blasting the company\u2019s efforts to allegedly silence Missouri farmers who sued the company following the closure and sale of the Dexter, Missouri chicken plant.\n\n\u201cYou have previously stonewalled my efforts to learn the truth about your shutdown of poultry plants in Noel and Dexter, Missouri,\u201d the Senator wrote. \u201cNow, your company is apparently trying to deter injured farmers from speaking out against it. This is wrong and anti-American, and you must immediately stop.\u201d\n\n\u201cAn ongoing class-action lawsuit alleges that your company sold its shuttered Dexter plant to a non-competitor\u2014Cal-Maine Foods\u2014which produces table eggs rather than processing broiler chickens. This left local farmers, who built their farms around broiler chicken production, in a bind. And it happened after you previously assured me, on September 15, 2023, that you would not prevent a competitor from acquiring your closed plants,\u201d Hawley continued.\n\nSenator Hawley has been a vocal advocate for Missouri farmers. Earlier this year, he pressed King about needed transparency regarding the Dexter plant closure. This came after he secured a commitment from King to help local farmers and protect Missouri jobs that were at risk due to plant closures.\n\nLast year, he introduced the Strengthening Antitrust Enforcement for Meatpacking Act to empower antitrust enforcers to break up giant meatpacking and poultry monopolies, giving farmers and workers more leverage.\n\nRead the full letter here or below.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:07:19Z"]], "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://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-denounces-tyson-foods-attempt-to-silence-farmers/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4408081769943237, "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"}