{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-presses-postmaster-general-for-accountability-for-undelivered-mail-in-missouri/", "Hawley Presses Postmaster General for Accountability for Undelivered Mail in Missouri", "2026-06-24", "2026", "2026-06", "Republican", "Senate", "MO", "Josh Hawley", "H001089", "www.hawley.senate.gov", "hawley", "https://www.hawley.senate.gov/press-releases/page/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2014 Today, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) grilled the Postmaster General of the United States Postal Service, David P. Steiner, in a Senate Homeland Security hearing over his agency\u2019s dismal service and untimely mail delivery in Missouri. Senator Hawley also questioned why Postmaster General Steiner has accepted large bonuses for himself while Missourians\u2019 mail fails to be delivered.\n\nSenator Hawley began, pointing to a poster behind him, \u201cI want to show you a picture, if I could, just to start. This is North St. Louis, Missouri. This is April 29 of this year. This is right around North Taylor Avenue. This is a pile of mail, thousands of pieces of mail, tax documents, prescription drugs, bills, utility communications from companies, thousands and thousands of documents. As you might imagine, the residents of St. Louis, when this was discovered on April 29 were absolutely outraged, not least because the mail has been slow and not delivered and missing targets for years now, and here we have thousands of pieces of mail. Some of the postmarks here, this wasn\u2019t going across the country, you have letters here that were just going across town that had been dumped in this pile. Now the postal service promised the public and me, when this was discovered, that there be a full accounting of this, we would find out what happened, and we have a full and total investigation and complete transparency. And since that time, I\u2019ve heard nothing. That was April. I\u2019ve heard nothing. What\u2019s the answer?\u201d\n\nSteiner responded, \u201cMy answer would be, when you put up that in front of me, I\u2019m outraged. And I think everybody in the postal service that that bleeds postal view blue would be outraged.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat was months ago. What have you done since then?\u201d Hawley asked.\n\n\u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve heard about it,\u201d Steiner said.\n\nHe questioned, \u201cHow is this possibly the first time you\u2019ve heard about it\u2026Listen, I get thousands of pieces of mail a week about the post office, people\u2019s mail not being delivered. Here it is in a pile, and you\u2019re telling me this first time you\u2019ve heard about it.\u201d\n\nSenator Hawley continued, \u201cYour targets for on time delivery in my state, which were not good to begin with, are just in the 90s, meaning you could miss it 10% of the time and give yourself an A grade, but start looking there in 2024, 2025. You\u2019re hitting your on time delivery targets 76% of the time maybe. That means fully a quarter of the time, best case scenario, people\u2019s mail in my state is not being delivered to them on time. Is this acceptable?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely not acceptable,\u201d Steiner conceded.\n\n\u201cJust last year, the inspector general, when I asked him to do an audit of the St. Louis distribution center, the Inspector General told me it was the worst case of lack of on-time delivery, the worst case of distribution problems he had ever seen, ever, in an audit that he had done, ever. What\u2019s been changed since then?\u201d Hawley demanded.\n\n\u201cIf you look at the service door, I would commend you to go online. We publish our services-\u201d Steiner said.\n\n\u201cNo, I don\u2019t want to go online. I want you to come here with answers because you\u2019re the Postmaster General of the United States\u2026the other thing I want to know, is why are you getting bonuses, and members of your staff getting bonuses for this kind of performance. Let\u2019s take a look, just look at the numbers. The Postmaster Generals of this country, in the last 10 years have gotten bonuses over $2 million. You got a bonus last year, $305,781. Why? Why are you getting bonuses when my constituents can\u2019t get the mail?\u201d Senator Hawley asked.\n\n\u201cSenator, I don\u2019t control bonuses,\u201d Steiner responded.\n\nHawley shot back, \u201cWill you refuse bonuses until the mail gets delivered? Yes or no?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat mail?\u201d Steiner asked.\n\n\u201cI am absolutely astounded at this today, General\u2026and, frankly, if things don\u2019t get better, you ought to resign, because you\u2019re not doing the job. You\u2019re leaving your good postal workers out there. You\u2019re hanging them out to dry. They don\u2019t make near what you do. They\u2019re working their butts off, they\u2019re getting blamed, and you\u2019re getting the bonus. We got a big problem. Based on what I\u2019ve seen today, you\u2019re part of it,\u201d concluded Senator Hawley.", 1, "2026-06-25T06:30:03Z", "2026-06-25T06:31:21Z"]], "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-presses-postmaster-general-for-accountability-for-undelivered-mail-in-missouri/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4000879600644112, "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"}