While at UW-M, Bowen became program director at Urban Underground, served on the Medical College of Wisconsin's Violence Prevention Initiative Steering Committee and the City of Milwaukee's Homicide Review Commission.
Elected office
In April 2012 he was elected to the County Board for District 10, at which time he was the youngest member of that board and one of the youngest black elected officials in the history of the Milwaukee metropolitan area.[2] He was the lead author of a living wage bill requiring all companies doing business with Milwaukee County to be paid $11.32 an hour. County ExecutiveChris Abele's veto of the ordinance was over-ridden.
In 2014, when Democratic incumbent Sandy Pasch announced that she would not seek re-election, Bowen was one of four candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin State Assembly in the 10th Assembly district. Bowen received a majority of the votes in the August 2014 Democratic primary,[3] and was unopposed in the general election.[4] He was subsequently re-elected in 2016, 2018, and 2020, without facing an opponent.
In 2022, Bowen ran (unsuccessfully dropping out early) for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin; fellow Democrat Darrin Madison was elected to succeed him in the Assembly. In 2023, he ran for an open seat on the Milwaukee Common Council, but fell 17 votes short of his opponent.[5][6]