Rep. Bill Foster

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2022 Report Card for Foster.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Foster is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the House of Representatives positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Foster has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Mar 21, 2023. See full analysis methodology.

Committee Membership

Bill Foster sits on the following committees:

• House Committee on Financial Services
  • Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy subcommittee Ranking Member

  Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion, National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions subcommittees

Enacted Legislation

Foster was the primary sponsor of 3 bills that were enacted:

• H.R. 700 (117th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 303 East Mississippi Avenue in Elwood, Illinois, as the “Lawrence M. ‘Larry’ Walsh Sr. Post …
• H.R. 4960 (114th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 525 N Broadway in Aurora, Illinois, as the “Kenneth M. Christy Post Office Building”.
• H.R. 5278 (111th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 405 West Second Street in Dixon, Illinois, as the “President Ronald W. Reagan Post Office …

View All »

Does 3 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.

We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Foster sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Finance and Financial Sector (22%) Science, Technology, Communications (22%) Education (12%) Health (12%) Government Operations and Politics (10%) Armed Forces and National Security (9%) Immigration (7%) International Affairs (5%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Foster recently introduced the following legislation:

• H.Res. 221: Expressing support for designation of March 14, 2023, as “National Pi Day”.
• H.Res. 183: Expressing support for designation of the third Friday of every March, as “National …
• H.Res. 112: Expressing the condolences of the House of Representatives and honoring the memory of …
• H.R. 783: To designate the Department of Energy Integrated Engineering Research Center Federal Building located …
• H.R. 415: End the Threat of Default Act
• H.R. 9582 (117th): National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program Reauthorization Act of 2022
• H.R. 9489 (117th): National Laboratory Biotechnology Research Act of 2022

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Mar 2008 to Mar 2023, Foster missed 78 of 8,066 roll call votes, which is 1.0%. This is on par with the median of 1.5% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:

• unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
• The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
• GPO Member Guide for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills