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| D.C. Mayor Vince Gray blocks traffic |
I don't think Congress was bargaining for this. The White House probably didn't see it coming either. But their 11th Hour budget agreement to avert a government shutdown had a distinctly partisan stink to it for local government officials in Washington D.C.
The deal included a couple of "riders" -- those little, seemingly insignificant bills attached to great big important ones -- that the Mayor and several city councilmembers were agitated with. They were so pissed off, in fact, that they got themselves arrested over it. And their supporters at a rush-hour rally at the Capitol Monday night, already righteously indignant about Taxation Without Representation, cheered as cops scooped up the mayor, the city council chairman, five other members of the council and 34 others.
Two riders had local government up in arms. One prevents the city from spending its tax dollars on abortions and the other forces D.C. to implement a school voucher program. It's hard to imagine Obama or Democrats pushing to include those conservative bills in the budget agreement. So it's pretty obvious who Mayor Vince Gray was lashing out at.
“All we want to do is spend our own money," Gray said during the rally. "Why should women in the District of Columbia be subjected to a set of rules that no other woman is subjected to? If we want a school voucher program, we should choose it ourselves.”
