Muriel Elizabeth Bowser (born August 2, 1972) is an American politician serving as the eighth Mayor of the District of Columbia since 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously represented Ward 4 as a member of the Council of the District of Columbia from 2007 to 2015. She is the second female Mayor of the District of Columbia after Sharon Pratt, and the first woman to be reelected to that position.
D.C. debates how to cope with crime as reform bill heads to Senate
Just over three weeks after the D.C. Council overturned Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto of a controversial criminal code reform bill that the Council had passed unanimously last November, the Republican-controlled U.S.
House of Representatives on Feb. 7 voted 250 to 173 to overturn the D.C. bill. In a development that surprised some D.C. political observers, including LGBTQ activists, 31 House Democrats were among those joining Republicans in voting to overturn the sweeping 450-page Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022.
On the same day that it voted to overturn the crime bill, the House voted 260 to 162, with 42 House Democrats voting yes, to pass a second disapproval resolution calling for overturning a bill approved by the D.C.
Council to allow non-citizens to vote in local D.C. elections. Both bills must now go to the U.S. Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority and where just a few Democratic senators voting to overturn either of the two bills, including the crime bill, could result in passage of the disapproval measure.
