By Chris Kain
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Asked today about congressional legislation reintroduced late last week by two Republican lawmakers seeking to revoke the District’s limited home rule, Mayor Muriel Bowser emphasized the need for full autonomy through statehood.

In response to a reporter’s question about the significance of home rule for the District, the three-term mayor said statehood is necessary to ensure that DC taxpayers are “treated like every other American,” with voting representation in the House and Senate.

“I don’t,” Bowser said when pressed as to whether she had a specific response to the reintroduction of the “Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident (BOWSER) Act” by Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles. The one-page bill doesn’t specify how DC would be governed but says the DC Home Rule Act of 1973 — which provided for an elected mayor and 13-member council — would be repealed one year after passage.

“We are reminded of what it means to be full citizens of this nation — and we can only get that through statehood,” Bowser added. “Home rule is limited self-government. But what we should be focused on is our pathway to becoming the 51st state.”

Lee and Ogles, longtime critics of DC’s government, introduced the same bill in the last term, when Democrats had control of the Senate and the White House. Now, with President Donald Trump in office and narrow GOP majorities in the House and Senate, many advocates for DC autonomy worry that the current political environment means the bill might move forward or at least set the stage for new limitations on home rule.

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