Foster's toughest adjustment? Relentless partisan sparring

Democrat Bill Foster, a former Fermilab scientist from Geneva, won a special election in May to assume the 14th Congressional District House seat long held by Republican Dennis Hastert. In the November general election, Foster will face Republican Jim Oberweis, of Sugar Grove, with the winner to serve a full, two-year term. The 14th District stretches west from the far Western suburbs, reaching nearly to the Mississippi River.

The Daily Herald spoke with Foster before he left for his party's national convention in Denver. Here is an edited version of the conversation.

Q: What's your role at the convention?

A: I am just going to support a member of the Illinois delegation, Barack Obama. In addition, with both national and state leaders there from across the country, I hope to build relationships beneficial to my constituents.

Q: What are you looking forward to at the convention?

A: One thing I'm doing is making a day trip to the National Renewable Energy lab in Golden, and I'm very excited about that. It was established in 1974 in response to the first energy crisis, and they've been developing wind and solar technologies and biofuel. They're on the leading edge of that research.

Q: What's been the most difficult adjustment, moving to Congress after many years in business and science?

A: I was very disappointed with the degree of partisanship. I've found it frustrating to be able to have very good conversations with people on both sides of the aisle and then to see, when both Democrats and Republicans file onto the floor of the House of Representatives, that they form up almost like street gangs.

I'm told it gets better after the election, and I'm looking forward to that. The successes I've had, like getting funding restored for Fermilab, have been cases where I've worked with both parties to achieve that success.

Q: What been your toughest vote so far?

A: One that I think surprised a lot of people was my vote against the Democrats' budget resolution. This was one that frankly doesn't win me a lot of friends in the leadership of the House, but until we reach the point where we start dealing with the true cost of the war in Iraq, we're going to be facing enormous deficits. Plus, the Democratic resolution, to my mind, did not lock down middle-class tax cuts that I had campaigned on.

I'm also getting a certain amount of, shall we say, interest from House leadership on the fact that I signed on to the bipartisan offshore drilling bill and using a fraction of the profits for renewable energy. But that's exactly the kind of compromise I believe I was sent to Washington to promote.

Q: The 14th District is still widely presumed to lean Republican. How much does that concern you as you enter the fall campaign?

A: I feel that it is an independent district that had been voting Republican because it liked Dennis Hastert.