When Rick Bell filed to run for state Senate in the 18th Legislative District, he said, it was because nobody else had.
The Democrat had sought elected office only once before; in 2004, when he unsuccessfully sought a seat for Congress in California. He ran to the left of the incumbent and hammered her for failing to oppose the Iraq War.
But as this year’s deadline to file with the Clark County Elections Office approached, he said, he thought there ought to be a Democratic challenger for Republican incumbent Sen. Ann Rivers of La Center.
“No one said they’d do it, and then the 18th Legislative District Democrat group here was looking for people,” Bell said, adding that running for state Senate is an intimidating prospect, especially against an established candidate like Rivers.
“She’s sharp, she’s tough, she’s definitely good at politics. She’s a pro,” Bell said.
Despite that, Bell had a strong showing in the primary election earlier this month. He gained 38.5 percent of the vote to Rivers’ 32.5 percent (a third candidate, Republican John Ley, split the conservative vote).
Now running a general election race, Bell said he’s not big on fundraising. He’s running a small-scale campaign operation. But he said he’s confident he can use social media and other tech tools, like interactive games and peer-to-peer texting, to help get his message across.
“You’ve got to kind of break through with something interesting,” Bell said.
His campaign, he said, can ultimately be summed up in just a few words: “No tolls, no bribes, better health care, low prices.”
Background in tech
Bell was born in Virginia. His father was a Korean War veteran and his mother was a Korean woman he’d met on duty. They separated when he was young, and Bell moved to Alaska with his mother and stepfather at 11.
“A couple years after that my dad went to prison for stealing an F-16 jet engine from the government,” Bell added, matter-of-fact.
As a child, Bell was obsessed with computers, a passion sparked by his mother when she bought her son his first computer at 8 years old — “I learned how to program a computer before I understood the math behind it,” Bell said.
Growing up, Bell worked on fishing boats in Alaska and eventually gained a scholarship to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. He graduated with a degree in philosophy.
After that, he moved to Davis, Calif., where he took his computer know-how and “did the dot-com thing,” Bell said. He worked as a programmer for a few companies, and then as a technology director at a hospital.
In early 2016, he founded a startup aimed at creating a centralized database where patients could more easily access their own health care data.
“I got interested in how people access their information, and how that affected their care,” Bell said. “It opens up this larger question overall about how we deal with health care.”
Bell, his wife and their preschool-aged daughter moved to the Pacific Northwest in early 2017. They spent a year in Hillsboro, Ore., before settling at their current home in the northwest corner of Camas in summer 2018.
Bell’s platform
If elected, Bell said, his experience in the health care industry would shape his priorities as a legislator.
Day 1 in Olympia, he says, his first focus would be the budget. Economic forecasters predict that the state is stuck in a $8.8 billion hole through 2023 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bell is critical of lawmakers who think the only two options are raising taxes and cutting services, echoing a critique he made during a July 15 conversation with The Columbian’s Editorial Board.
“The middle path there is health care. There is a ton of money that is not spent wisely in health care,” Bell said. “You really look at drug companies, insurance companies, the traditional Democratic ‘bad guys’ — they’re making a lot of money, and they could innovate.”
Bell also said he’d prioritize rebuilding the Interstate 5 Bridge, though he does not support tolling as a way to pay for it.
His third main policy position proposes using the existing tax on campaign contributions and using it to form a state-run, fact-checking arm of political media. A statewide media company would help to hold politicians accountable, he said, and keep voters better informed.
“The idea is to create this business model where political media can actually have a fact-based approach to informing voters,” Bell said. “I think the current media environment, it’s a very tough and limited business model for political journalism to really thrive and flourish.”
Bell and Rivers will appear on the Nov. 3 general election ballot in the 18th District, encompassing east Vancouver, Camas, Battle Ground, Ridgefield and the rural unincorporated areas in north Clark County.
