Rep. Bill Foster

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2019 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 liberal–conservative 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 6, 2015 to Jan 21, 2020. See full analysis methodology.

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

Committee Membership

Bill Foster sits on the following committees:

• House Committee on Financial Services
  Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions, Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets subcommittees
• House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
  Energy, Research and Technology subcommittees

Enacted Legislation

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

• H.R. 5789: To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to provide for Medicaid coverage protections for pregnant and post-partum women while receiving inpatient treatment for a substance use ...
• 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 ...

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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:

Health (19%) Science, Technology, Communications (18%) Education (18%) Finance and Financial Sector (14%) Armed Forces and National Security (11%) Immigration (10%) Taxation (5%) Government Operations and Politics (5%)

Recent Bills

Some of Foster’s most recently sponsored bills include...

• H.R. 5336: Investor Choice Act of 2019
• H.R. 5300: Enhancing Financial Stability Research and Oversight Act
• H.Res. 740: Expressing support for the designation of December 3, 2019, as the “National Day ...
• H.R. 5049: WISE Government Act
• H.R. 4757: American Innovation Act
• H.R. 4698: Medical Records Access Fairness Act
• H.R. 4645: Public Service Loan Forgiveness Inclusion Act of 2019

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Mar 2008 to Jan 2020, Foster missed 68 of 6,692 roll call votes, which is 1.0%. This is better than the median of 2.1% 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 and major life events.

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