FOSTER CAMPBELL
FOR UNITED STATES SENATE
Works Hard, Talks Straight, Makes Sense
A LIFETIME OF SERVICE
Foster Campbell has served the people of North Louisiana faithfully for forty years. Campbell represented District 36 in the Louisiana State Senate where he served for seven uninterrupted terms representing both rural areas and suburban Bossier. In the Senate, he fought for education funding, affordable utility rates and coastal restoration. He was elected to the North Louisiana seat on the Public Service Commission in November 2002, representing 24 parishes and nearly one million people. He was re-elected in October 2008 with 78 percent of the vote and re-elected again in November of 2014 with 61 percent.
Campbell holds a degree in business and economics from Northwestern State University at Natchitoches. After his time at Northwestern, Foster was a classroom teacher. He owns and operates two insurance agencies in Bossier City. He lives and raises cattle with his wife, the former Gwen Wilhite, on a farm at Elm Grove in south Bossier Parish.
FIGHTING SPIRIT
Throughout his career, Foster Campbell has identified smart strategies to solve the most pressing concerns of his constituents, often fighting powerful corporate interests along the way.
At the Public Service Commission Campbell has worked to make utility companies and the commission more responsive to the public. He led ethics reform efforts to prohibit wining and dining of commissioners and Commission staff by utilities. He hosts public and Commission meetings in his district each year. He has championed lower rates, energy efficiency and the use of renewable power. He passed measures to help victims of domestic violence by waiving their utility deposits and to stop disconnection of utilities during extreme weather.
In 2004 Campbell made national and international news by persuading the PSC to provide telephone service to the Mink community in Natchitoches Parish after 40 years of appeals. In 2005 he obtained $39 million from the federal government to provide free cell phones and service to Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
Fighting for the ultimate voice-less constituency, inmates and their families, Campbell led a five-year campaign at the PSC to lower the high cost of telephone calls from Louisiana jails and prisons and highlight the widespread application of unauthorized fees and charges on user bills.
As a state senator Campbell led a three-year campaign to regulate the rates charged by rural electric cooperatives, lowering electric bills for a million state residents. He took on the railroads over crossing safety. He created the $1-billion Educational Excellence Fund to fund local schools from Louisiana’s Tobacco Settlement. In 2001 he coauthored “Do Not Call” legislation protecting consumers from sales calls at home.
He fought the big oil and gas lobby over replacing Louisiana’s antiquated Severance Tax with a Hydrocarbon Processing Tax that would fund restoration of the state’s eroding coastline.