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.