Bill Foster
I support marriage equality and oppose legislation that defines marriage as only being between a man and a woman.Collection: Equality
Veterans often need medical and psychological assistance, and often, for them, it is hard to ask for help, but we want them to know they are not alone.Collection: Medical
History has not looked kindly on us when we've prevented people fleeing violence from seeking refuge in this country.
The fight for a truly inclusive nation that embraces its diversity is not over and perhaps will never be.
Those who promote hatred, bigotry, and fear do not represent America and do not represent us.
Whoever is running the country should not be in the pay of a foreign interest. The best way is to see tax returns.
Spend a while listening to people in your district to make sure you understand how they are served well in government and how they could be served better.
The National Endowment for the Arts distributes money to all 50 states, and they try to do their best to distribute to rural and suburban areas. It's one of the great things about the program. It raises the awareness of culture throughout the population.
I am committed to standing up for the LGBTQ community and being a strong voice.
People are people, regardless of who they love or what gender they relate to.
Every person deserves to be treated fairly under the law.
It's wonderful to see more of my colleagues recognizing the importance of investing in STEM education and scientific research and development.
The amount of subtle and beautiful physics that's necessary to make a smartphone work is enormous.
My dad spent most of the '50s and early '60s actually acting as sort of an advance man for the Justice Department, as a civil rights lawyer. So it was actually reading his papers after he passed away a few years ago that first started me thinking about this... What fraction of your life do you spend in service to your fellow man?
There is an almost universal experience in physicists, at least of my generation, which is home-made pyrotechnics.
Those in science perform research, have it reviewed by their peers, publish the results, and believe the answer should be obvious.
I support common-sense measures like universal background checks to prevent guns from falling into the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill.
If we choose to ignore science and refuse to fund important scientific research, we voluntarily cede our place as a world leader in innovation.
One of the big concerns is the increasing disrespect for the scientific method and for policies that aren't based on facts and evidence.
America cannot become just a service and financial services economy, and to prevent that, there is no substitute for having people with successful, real-world manufacturing experience in Congress.
Immigrants greatly contribute to our country's economic prosperity.
The freedoms and prosperity we enjoy in America are thanks to the brave men and women who have served in our armed forces.
As someone who started a small business from scratch, I know how important it is for families and for communities to have strong job creation.
Federal policies must understand the linkages between economic growth, social mobility, and a strong middle class.
I support the Affordable Care Act and believe we should take steps to further expand coverage and reduce costs.
It is important to remember the purpose of health care reform: to make sure Americans have access to quality, affordable health care - especially those individuals who were being denied by their insurance companies because they weren't profitable customers.
The United States will always be a global leader, and we need to actively engage the international community to make sure all citizens of the world live freely and equally under their country's rule of law. We cannot, however, afford to fight other nations' wars interminably or stabilize their regions.
When I first ran for Congress, I decided that I would not take pledges to vote for or against any issue. I believe the practice of taking pledges contributes to the worst of the partisan gridlock in Washington, preventing many members of Congress from even considering a reasonable compromise offered by the other side.
As a scientist and successful businessman, I understand that no one has a monopoly on good ideas.
I believe we need a balanced, bipartisan approach to debt reduction that includes a combination of spending cuts, investments in economic growth, and simplification of the tax code that closes corporate loopholes that incentivize companies to ship jobs overseas.
Properly funding federal research at Argonne National Labs and Fermi National Accelerator Labs will also create jobs and directly benefit the Eleventh District.
If you're dealing with live nuclear material, and you do anything that disperses them, it is very hard to hide, even after a 24-day cleanup period, the fact that there was nuclear material in this facility.
Science, logic, and truth should not be partisan issues; they are the cornerstones of fields that have made the United States a leader in innovation and a better place for everyone to live.
Science has improved public health, taken us to the moon, and allowed us to understand the origins of our universe. It also has given us the tools to solve problems now instead of reacting to them after it is too late.
Scientific discovery requires sustained funding for decades, and politicians can destroy it in a single budget cycle.
We need to beef up STEM education.
As a scientist, the starting point is always the facts of the matter, whereas often, in politics, the starting point is how does this play in the next election.
Measles may not spread as fast as erroneous sound bites and tweets, but they both have the potential to cause a great amount of damage.
The decline of particle physics in the U.S. is really a symptom of the erratic and sometimes anti-scientific attitudes in Washington and the incompetence of Congress in managing science.
In science, if you stand up and say something you know is not correct, that's career-ending. It used to be that way in politics, but not anymore.
Scientists want to know the evidence behind a statement; they want reproducible tests and verifiable facts. There is a big difference in the thought process of a trial lawyer who is interested not in what's true but what he can convince a jury is true.
I think the amount of love and trust on Capitol Hill is often in short supply, and having more dogs here would probably make this place work better and maybe in a more bipartisan manner.
One of the fundamental scientific discoveries of the dog-human relationship is that when a dog looks into his master's eyes, you have a release of oxytocin - which is the trust hormone, the love hormone.
I often say that I inherited the family's recessive gene for adult-onset political activism.
There's a fundamental question that everyone has to answer: What fraction of your life do you spend in service to your fellow man? It's not something that science helps you answer at all. It's one of these questions like, Who are you gong to marry? Science doesn't really help you with the question.
I was surprised that when you get into electoral politics how scientific the analysis was in the electorate. You can identify on a state-by-state or district-by-district basis fundamental building blocks that behave in different ways. I was impressed in general with the sophistication of polling.
My father was actually a chemist. He got a degree in chemistry from Stanford.
There are a number of much less expensive alternatives to detaining immigrants than locking them up somewhere.
There's no way I can run a nonpartisan organization the same time I am running for Congress.
I used to say I represented 33% of the strategic reserve of physicists in Congress.