WASHINGTON (WUSA/AP) -- U.S. Capitol Police released Mayor Vincent Gray and several Council members overnight after their arrests in front of the Hart Senate Office Building Monday.
A total of 41 people, including Council chair Kwame Brown, were taken into custody on Constitution Avenue around 5:30 p.m. while protesting restrictions placed on the District as part of the federal budget deal. Those arrested are charged with Unlawful Assembly (Blocking Passage), which is a misdemeanor that can be resolved by paying a $50 fine.
Gray and others sat down and blocked the street in front of the Senate office building Monday. They chanted and shouted, "Hey, hey, no, no, those D.C. riders have got to go." U.S. Capitol Police arrested them, cuffing their hands behind them with plastic loops, and loaded them into police wagons to cheers from the crowd.
"If this isn't taxation without representation, I don't know what is," the mayor said Monday during the protest.
Congress oversees D.C.'s budget and laws and can pull funding for programs it doesn't like during the budgeting process.
Under the deal reached Friday to avert a government shutdown, the District likely will be unable to spend local taxpayer dollars on abortions for low-income women. It may also be barred from spending city money on needle exchange programs.
Speaking on 9NEWS NOW at 6 a.m. after his release, Mayor Gray said, "I think the effort now has to be in our hands. We have to make it clear that we resent having these riders placed on our budget, in fact, we resent having to send our budget to the Congress in the first place because these are District taxpayer dollars that we're talking about, not federal dollars, and they shouldn't be caught up in this."
Asked if he feels he has a friend in the White House, Gray said, "At this stage, I think we have to assume that people need to step up and express their friendship. Historically, it's been assumed the Republicans weren't our friends, and the Democrats were our friends. I think now we have to assume that we ask everybody, 'Where do you stand on this issue?' That includes Republicans and Democrats in the Congress, and frankly, I'd love to see the President stand up and say he does support the District of Columbia."
Gray became the second D.C. mayor to go to jail while advocating for home rule. Sharon Pratt Kelly was arrested during a statehood protest in August 1993.