Bowser, O'Malley To Speak At 2020 SXSW Conference & Festivals

WASHINGTON, DC — The issues of Washington, D.C., statehood and government leadership in the Digital Age will be talked about by two powerful D.C. area politicians not in the nation's capital, but at the 2020 South by Southwest Conference & Festivals in Austin, Texas.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley have been invited to speak at the conference, which takes place March 13 to 21.

The event is organized into 22 programming tracks, spanning from politics and media to technology and sports. Influential figures — like musician A$AP Rocky and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — are invited each year to speak about their industries during one of SXSW's programming tracks.

For next year's conference, Bowser and O'Malley are speaking at sessions under the Government & Politics Track.

Bowser — who, in 2018, became the first D.C. mayor to win a second term in 16 years — is expected to discuss a controversial issue that is getting unprecedented Democratic support: D.C. statehood.

"Washington, DC residents are disenfranchised in a way that most Americans would not imagine possible — denied voting rights in Congress despite paying taxes, serving in the military, and having all the other obligations of United States citizenship," Bowser wrote for the event description. "Not only are DC residents deprived of full voting representation in Congress, we are also subject to the politically-motivated whims of members of Congress from other parts of the country."

SEE ALSO:

• DC Statehood Moves Closer To Passing House: Del. Norton
• Majority Of Marylanders Support DC Statehood: Report

O'Malley — who served two terms as both the mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland — is expected to share details from his new book about effective governance in the Digital Age.

"He will share details from his book that will lay out a new way of governing which every public servant has the ability to call into action," O'Malley's event bio states. "But this is not your grandparent's way of getting things done — it requires a radical commitment to openness and transparency; the courage to follow the data wherever it might lead; and a relentless commitment to measuring the outputs of government on a real-time basis for all to see. It is all about producing better results — real-time — for real people."

Here are some other D.C. figures speaking across the conference's 22 programming tracks:

• Kwame Onwuachi — James Beard Award winner; executive chef at Kith/Kin; owner of Philly Wing Fry franchise
  • From Next to Now: African Food Culture
  • Featured Session: Kwame Onwuachi in Conversation with Liz Bacalar
• Dr. Unique Morris-Hughes — Director of the Washington DC Department of Employment Services (DOES)
  • Beyond The Books: DC's Libraries Foster Innovation
• Richard Reyes-Gavilan — Executive director of DC Public Library
  • Beyond The Books: DC's Libraries Foster Innovation
• Susan Benton — President and CEO of the Urban Libraries Council, a D.C.-based membership organization of North America's leading public library systems
  • Beyond The Books: DC's Libraries Foster Innovation
• Amanda Finnegan — Editor Of "By The Way" from The Washington Post
  • Travel Comes Home: Destination Journalism Trends
• Sara Fischer — Media reporter at Axios
  • Free Press, Advertising, & The Future of Democracy