Campaign Phone Number
3609611402
Biography (max 750 char)
Ryan Bowman is a small business owner, caregiver, entrepreneur, and community advocate from Whatcom County. He has worked in healthcare, food service, caregiving, and business ownership, providing firsthand experience with the challenges facing working families, seniors, and small businesses. Running for Washington State Senate in the 42nd Legislative District with No Party Preference, Bowman is committed to representing people over parties and special interests. His priorities include affordable housing, behavioral health, education, worker protections, environmental stewardship, infrastructure, and strengthening local economies through community-driven solutions.
My top budget priority is fulfilling Washington’s constitutional obligation to fully fund education, because a strong education system is the foundation for long-term economic resilience, workforce development, and innovation. From there, investments should prioritize housing affordability, behavioral health services, infrastructure, environmental protection, and support for working families.
If additional revenue or savings were needed, I would first look at administrative cost growth since the COVID era, including unnecessary expansion of bureaucratic FTEs and disproportionate increases in public sector compensation. In some cases, salary growth at the local level has outpaced both inflation and service outcomes, and that imbalance should be reviewed.
Strengthening public confidence in elections requires transparency, security, and accessibility. Washington should continue investing in secure, auditable systems, clear voter information, and strong civic education so people understand how elections are run and verified.
We should also explore reforms like ranked-choice voting, which has shown potential to increase participation and broaden voter choice. Improving civic engagement through accessible candidate forums and equal public access to information can further strengthen trust.
Confidence grows when voting is easy, the process is transparent, and every ballot is counted fairly and openly.
The most effective state-level strategy to improve public safety is to fully fund and modernize the systems we already rely on, while raising expectations for training, accountability, and outcomes. After completing the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office community academy, it is clear that many public safety systems are under-resourced and carrying responsibilities that exceed current capacity.
We should invest in better training standards, including psychology, de-escalation, crisis response, and modern technology, alongside stronger partnerships with universities and community programs. This is not about defunding public safety, but redefining and strengthening it for today’s needs.
Washington can lead by building a more professional, well-trained, and well-supported public safety system.
Washington should support local journalism without influencing its content. Strong local news is essential to an informed public, government accountability, and civic engagement. Local reporters cover city councils, school boards, courts, and community issues that national media often miss. The state's role should be to improve transparency, strengthen public records access, promote media literacy, and explore fair ways to help local news remain sustainable while protecting editorial independence. Government should never direct reporting or favor viewpoints. Instead, it should ensure residents have access to reliable information and that independent local news organizations have a fair opportunity to serve their communities and strengthen democracy.
I support a redistricting process that is transparent, independent, and focused on fair representation. Washington's bipartisan commission has helped reduce direct partisan gerrymandering, but there is room for improvement. I would support stronger public participation, greater transparency in map-drawing decisions, and clearer standards that prioritize communities of interest, geographic continuity, tribal consultation, and equal representation. Maps should reflect the people and communities they serve rather than political advantage. Any reforms should increase public trust, reduce opportunities for partisan influence, and ensure every voter has an equal voice in our democratic process.
The greatest challenge facing the 42nd District is water security and the Nooksack Basin adjudication. Water impacts agriculture, tribal treaty rights, rural homeowners, economic development, housing, and environmental health. As population and climate pressures grow, water access will become more contested and urgent.
The state must ensure a fair, transparent, science-based process while investing in conservation, infrastructure, watershed restoration, and long-term planning with tribes, farmers, and local governments. Most importantly, water is not a commodity when it comes to human life. It is a fundamental resource essential for survival, and policy must reflect that. Washington must protect water as a shared public resource for present and future generations.
Campaign Phone Number
3602093203
Biography (max 750 char)
I'm a high school science teacher at the Lummi Nation School and the volunteer Vice President of the Kulshan Community Land Trust, a nonprofit that builds permanently affordable homes in Whatcom County. Before returning to the classroom, I spent several years as a policy adviser in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. I was elected to the 2025 Whatcom County Charter Review Commission. My wife Komal and I are raising our family in Bellingham.
My top budget priorities are expanding affordable housing, investing in childcare, and building state-level resilience. The state must act bigger and faster by growing the Housing Trust Fund and removing unnecessary restrictions on new affordable developments. We must also fund high-quality early learning to lower crushing costs for families and lift provider wages out of poverty. Finally, we need to build legal firewalls to protect our schools, healthcare, and private data from federal overreach. For revenue, I support rebalancing our tax code so the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share. If cuts are required, I will look to eliminate corporate tax exemptions that fail to protect workers, ensuring we never reduce funding for the essential programs our families need to survive.
Washington has a gold standard vote-by-mail system that is safe, secure, and accessible, but we must proactively protect it from outside disinformation and expand civic participation. As an elected Charter Review Commissioner, I have championed reforms like ranked-choice voting for local elections because it builds trust, reduces polarization, and ensures every vote matters. We must increase state support for our county auditors so they have the resources to actively educate the community and counter false narratives with transparent, public audits. Finally, expanding civic education in our public schools will welcome a new generation of working families into our democratic process, keeping our elections strong, trusted, and vibrant.
True public safety requires tackling the root causes of crime: housing instability, poverty, and untreated behavioral health crises. In Whatcom County, the fentanyl epidemic demands an urgent state-level response. I support expanding funding for mobile crisis stabilization units to integrate mental health and substance use treatment directly into our emergency response system. This alleviates the burden on law enforcement so they can focus on violent crime. We must also invest in competitive wages for frontline social workers and first responders while strengthening gun violence prevention laws, ensuring our neighborhoods are safe places to live without fear.
Independent local journalism is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy and a vital defense against misinformation. When corporate hedge funds buy out local newspapers, our communities lose the investigative reporting that keeps powerful insiders accountable. Washington state could play a supportive role by providing targeted tax credits for local news organizations that employ in-state journalists. The state also needs to fully fund rural broadband expansion in districts like the 42nd, ensuring that every family, regardless of income or zip code, has reliable access to trusted information.
As an elected Whatcom County Charter Review Commissioner, I have worked to align our local districting rules with state policies that protect fair representation. We must bring that same commitment to the 2031 state redistricting process. In Olympia, I will support reforms that mandate absolute public transparency throughout the process. We need clear guidelines that strictly protect tribal nations, labor centers, and cohesive neighborhoods from being carved up.
The greatest challenge facing the 42nd District is the crushing cost of living, driven by skyrocketing housing prices. As a teacher and community land trust leader, I see daily how families are being pushed to the brink. State government must step up with a proportional response to this crisis. We need to use the state capital budget to scale permanently affordable workforce housing through models like community land trusts. The state must also protect renters by banning predatory landlord junk fees and passing predictable cost stabilization measures. We cannot settle for incremental tweaks while working people are forced out of the communities they keep running; we need bold state action to make Whatcom County affordable again.
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