In the News
SUGAR GROVE – U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Naperville, and U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, headlined a panel discussion on student loan debt Aug. 5 at Waubonsee Community College.
With a panel of six and an audience of dozens, topics included the importance of financial literacy, how to find assistance with student loan repayment and what can be done to promote college affordability.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, introduced legislation to amend the penalties students face when convicted of minor marijuana offenses.
Under current law, a student convicted of possessing marijuana could lose federal student aid for an extended period of time, according to a news release from Foster's office.
Will County area members of the U.S. House of Representatives helped pass a bill aiming to reverse the Trump Administration's travel ban on many Muslim-majority countries.
The House passed the National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants Act to reverse the executive orders, according to a news release.
It was a full house at the Climate Change Forum, hosted by Representatives Bill Foster, Sean Casten, and Dick Durbin at North Central College.
The discussion focused on the effect climate change has on the weather like melting glaciers, rising sea levels and the increased power of hurricanes.
"This is real stuff. 50 percent of all of the carbon dioxide that we have ever emitted into the atmosphere as a species, in the entire time that are species has been on the earth has been emitted since 1980," said Congressman Casten.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster weighed in on the Supreme Court decision pertaining to access of President Donald Trump's tax records.
The high court voted, 7-2, to uphold the Manhattan district attorney's demand for Trump's tax returns in the case of Trump v. Vance. The district attorney issued a grand jury subpoena to an accounting firm that had financial records of Trump and one of his businesses.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, introduced a resolution in support of allowing so-called "Dreamers," or undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children, to be able to serve in the military.
Foster argued that allowing undocumented immigrants to serve would improve readiness and let young
people who grew up in the U.S. serve the country, according to a news release.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster praised the Supreme Court's ruling this week against a Louisiana law restricting access to abortion clinics.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the June Medical Services v. Russo case against allowing the law in Louisiana. Foster, D-Naperville, said in a statement the law was passed to keep women from getting an abortion in that state.
The entire Illinois Congressional Delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission chairman and board urging them to improve the nation's broadband maps.
The delegation asked Chairman Ajit Pai and the four FCC commissioners to reform the mapping process for broadband services, according to a news release from the group. Those who signed onto the letter included local members of Congress like Reps. Bill Foster, Adam Kinzinger, Dan Lipinski and Lauren Underwood.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville called his vote for a bill to provide legal status for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children one of his proudest moments in Congress.
The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, Act was originally filed by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, in 2001, but has never been passed, although it's been brought up multiple times in subsequent congressional sessions.
WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday approved a measure to offer legal protections to "Dreamers" and others — youths brought to the U.S. illegally through no fault of their own — with bills authored by Democrats stalled because of a blockade in the GOP-run Senate.
The Senate is a "legislative black hole," Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., a physicist, told me.
"The Senate has become an empty chamber, a legislative graveyard," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on the Senate floor hours before the House vote, throwing darts at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.