Bowser, Muriel, 1972-

Muriel Elizabeth Bowser (born August 2, 1972) is an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served as the eighth mayor of the District of Columbia, a position she has held since 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.

Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in the North Michigan Park neighborhood there, she graduated from Elizabeth Seton High School, a private all-girls Catholic high school located in Bladensburg, Maryland and then earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from American University. Bowser began her political career in 2004, running unopposed for the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC). She represented district 4B09, which includes the neighborhood of Riggs Park. She was unopposed again in 2006 when she ran for re-election. She was elected to the Council of the District of Columbia in 2007 in a special election called to fill the Ward 4 seat when it was vacated by Adrian Fenty, who was elected Mayor in 2006. Bowser had served as a campaign coordinator for Fenty. As a Councilmember, she served as the Chairwoman of the Committee on Economic Development which created more than 5,000 units of affordable housing, passed legislation to build the new soccer stadium, and secured from the federal government the best portion of the Walter Reed campus for DC. She also led her colleagues to pass comprehensive ethics reform and increased transparency in government contracting.

On March 23, 2013, Bowser announced that she would run for Mayor of the District of Columbia in the 2014 election. After winning the April 2014 Democratic primary with 43.4 percent of the vote, Bowser went on to win the general election with 54.5 percent of the vote, taking office on January 2, 2015. Bowser is committed to making sure every Washingtonian gets a fair shot in a growing and prosperous Washington, DC. Her administration is focused on making DC’s prosperity more inclusive, advancing DC values, and building safer, stronger, and healthier neighborhoods across DC’s eight wards. As Mayor, Bowser has championed a wide range of family-friendly policies, including raising the minimum wage to $15/hour, adding more than 1,000 new child care seats, and focusing the DC Government’s attention on improving maternal health outcomes, chaired the National League of Cities Task Force on Housing, doubled the District’s annual investment in affordable housing, and set a bold goal to build 36,000 new homes by 2025, and added more than 57,000 jobs, reduced unemployment by 28 percent, and increased DC Government’s annual spending with local businesses by $200 million.