2020 Election Profile: Samuel Bell, RI State Senate District 5
GoLocalProv News Team
2020 Election Profile: Samuel Bell, RI State Senate District 5
Read what he has to say about why he is running for reelection.
This is part of an ongoing series by GoLocal featuring each of the candidates for House and Senate.
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1. What do you think is the biggest political issue this campaign season in Rhode Island?
Rhode Island is experiencing the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Our state faces a choice: Will we continue to cut taxes for the rich, slash Medicaid, and leave cities and towns to suffer the consequences? Or will we repeal the tax cuts for the rich, fight against brutal budget cuts, and invest in a real recovery that will leave no Rhode Islander behind?
2. What do we need to do to improve Rhode Island's economy?
We must first invest in shoring up our healthcare system, providing hazard pay for frontline workers, safe staffing, and many more jobs for Rhode Islanders while delivering the care our people need. We must resist the temptation to reopen too early because we can only truly recover when we have finally defeated this pandemic. We must provide funding for small businesses and nonprofits forced to close their doors during this crisis. And we must invest in rent relief, additional unemployment insurance, stimulus payments, Medicaid expansions, SNAP enhancements, childcare programs, and all the investments our people desperately need to weather this crisis. Unfortunately, the machine in our state is instead pushing devastating cuts. We have to resist. We have to fight back. I’ve released a 19-point plan for avoiding cuts and investing in a recovery. We can afford it. What we cannot afford is devastating cuts.
From 2006 to 2010, Rhode Island passed one of the biggest tax cuts for the rich in American history. Only North Dakota has cut taxes for the rich more. Since then, we’ve had budget crisis after budget crisis. Deficits have fallen on the backs of the poor and working class, especially through cuts to Medicaid and our cities and towns. They even laid off every single teacher in the city of Providence. We must repeal these tax cuts so we can fund the recovery we deserve.
3. What is the greatest challenge facing Rhode Island as a state?
The biggest challenge is politicians, journalists, union leaders, advocates, and even many progressive groups not having the guts to stand up to the machine and fight back. Most members of the Senate who voted for Senate President Dominick Ruggerio have at some point privately admitted to me that they wish they had a different Senate President, one without such extremist right-wing policy positions and appalling record of personal misconduct. Except for Majority Leader Mike McCaffrey and Republicans Elaine Morgan and Gordon Rogers, none of the rest of the Senate is as right-wing as Ruggerio. The argument against standing up to Ruggerio is just about fear of retaliation. If we all stood up together, we could easily elect a Senate President who represents the values of our state. And if we did that, we could actually make life better for Rhode Islanders. We should not continue to live in fear. We need to rise up, smash the machine, and take back our state. The machine is so weak. It only lives on because far too many are afraid to stand up and fight back. We can win, but we have to have the courage to fight for it.
4. Why are you running for office? What makes you uniquely qualified?
I’m running for reelection because we have to invest in a recovery. We cannot afford any more Medicaid cuts, any more layoffs, or any more cuts to our schools. We need to repeal the tax cuts for the rich and end the subsidies for luxury housing so we can afford to invest in the people who are struggling the most right now.
In the Senate, I have a record of success defeating tax cuts for the rich (like the Rhode Island version of the Trump tax cuts for the rich) and fighting back against brutal cuts. Unlike more conservative politicians, I won’t vote for a budget that cuts Medicaid, our public schools, or struggling cities like Providence. And I have a record of putting forward pragmatic solutions to difficult problems, like my 19-point plan to address our budget crisis.
I can’t promise that I’m going to win the fight to stop these cuts and invest in a recovery. It’s going to be a very difficult fight. All I can promise you is what I will fight for and how hard I will fight.
5. Who is your inspiration?
At the national level, I am most inspired by leaders like Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Their clear advocacy for progressive values, for actually fighting for the poor and the downtrodden, has inspired so many Americans, me very much included. Bernie Sanders and the movement he led to smash the conservative Democratic machine that dominated Burlington politics will always inspire me and the work our movement is trying to achieve here in Rhode Island. In terms of effective state legislative work, I am deeply inspired by New York’s progressive legislators, by people like state Senators Mike Giannaris and Julia Salazar and state Representative Yuh-Line Niou. I also find Maryland Delegate Gabe Acevero deeply inspiring, especially the personal sacrifices he’s made to fight for what’s right. Here in Rhode Island, we have so many great progressive leaders who continue to inspire me. I don’t have space to list them all, but I take so much inspiration from Donna Nesselbush, Jeanine Calkin, Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, Moira Walsh, Tommy McCoy, Bobby Quinn, Florence Murray, Ray Rickman, Joanne Giannini, David Segal, Elizabeth Morancy, and of course John Lombardi.
When it comes to tactics and strategy, although I strongly disagree with their ideology and policy positions, my inspirations will always be Mike McCaffrey and Joe Montalbano. These brilliant conservatives had so much success pushing their right-wing ideas because of their incredible genius and grasp of political strategy. The very successful dissident caucus that they formed to resist the already quite conservative moderate Senate leadership from the right in the 1990s is the inspiration for the work I’m trying to do in the Senate today. But this time from the left.
Biography
Elected in 2018, I serve the people of Providence in the State Senate as a Democrat. My district contains the neighborhoods of Mt. Pleasant, Olneyville, Federal Hill, and Manton Heights, along with parts of Downtown, Elmhurst, Hartford Park, and the West End. I live in Mt. Pleasant with my wife Samantha. I received my PhD in Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Science from Brown University in 2016, and I work as a planetary geologist at the Planetary Science Institute. Before my election to the Senate, I ran several activist groups and campaigns. My investigation into the NRA’s campaign finances got their RI PAC shut down until they paid what was then the second highest campaign finance penalty in state history.
www.sambellpvd.com
https://www.facebook.com/sambellforstatesenate/
https://twitter.com/SamuelWBell