Washington Mayor Vincent Gray, flanked by Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (left), is swarmed by reporters on the Capitol steps after a brief exchange with Sen. Harry Reid. Bryan Lowry/Medill.
WASHINGTON – Washington Mayor Vincent Gray upstaged Senate Democrats – who were once again blasting Republicans for the partial government shutdown – when he surprised them Wednesday at a news conference on the Capitol steps to demand D.C. be freed from federal budget control during the shutdown.
Gray walked over from a rally of angry D.C. residents on the Capitol’s lawn and stood silently beside Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid while Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia gave a speech detailing the the shutdown’s harm to his state, particularly in Washington’s northern Virginia suburbs.
Although Gray was silent, his supporters weren’t. Their chants of “Free D.C.!” began to drown out Kaine’s speech.
Kaine, Sen. Mark Warner, also of Virginia, and Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin of Maryland all criticized the the economic impact of the shutdown for the Beltway region, especially because of the furloughed federal employees.
“These are real people. Not numbers,” Cardin said.
Mikulski highlighted the damage the furloughs cause to businesses in communities that are home to federal agencies and military facilities.
“We need to reopen government so that we reopen small business,” Mikulski said. “All of the small business throughout our state, near our military facilities, that are stressed and stretched because they don’t have customers.” Although the focus was on the Washington metro area, Reid and a legion of Senate Democrats were standing loyally behind them on the Capitol steps as a show of strength.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats gather outside the Capitol to discuss the economic impact on the shutdown on D.C.’s suburbs. Bryan Lowry/Medill
But Gray’s unexpected arrival shifted the focus from the suburbs’ struggles and onto the city of Washington. The District of Columbia’s budget is under federal control. City services are continuing, paid through reserve funds, but if the shutdown does not end soon many public services could be halted, he said.
Gray’s rally to demand D.C.’s funding be freed during the shutdown included the district’s Democratic delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and California Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
A reporter asked Reid if he’d consider freeing D.C.’s budget. “Don’t talk to us. Talk to the Republicans,” he answered bluntly.
Reid quickly finished answering questions. He quietly exchanged words with the mayor before he and his fellow Democrats hustled back into the Capitol.
Gray then held his own impromptu news conference on the Capitol steps with Holmes Norton until Capitol police ordered the throng of reporters surrounding them to head back toward the lawn.
Gray dismissed the notion that releasing the city’s funding from federal control would open the door to other piecemeal measures proposed by Republicans to fund government departments on a temporary basis.
“We are not a department of the federal government,” Gray said. “We are a city. We’re simply asking for the opportunity to spend our money.”
Gray said that Reid had supported the concept of D.C. statehood in the past and argued that the district should be able to spend its local tax dollars like other municipalities. “We’re talking about money of the people of the District of Columbia that shouldn’t be held hostage here in the first place.”
An NBC reporter claimed he overheard Reid tell the mayor, “Don’t screw it up,” during their brief exchange.
The mayor did not confirm or deny the exchange. “Senator Reid said virtually nothing over there. He made a comment and I don’t know if he was talking to me or talking to others,” he later said.
“But he hasn’t responded to the question we raised. And that is take an affirmative vote on freeing the District of Columbia.”
After the press events, Gray and Holmes Norton posed for pictures with some of the D.C. residents who had attended the rally.
“I think the mayor is being proactive,” said Leroy Thorpe, a Washington resident who works for the Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services and worries that a prolonged shutdown will hurt his ability to buy groceries and pay his mortgage.
A spokesman for. Issa said partisan politics have prevented D.C. from gaining local budget autonomy during the shutdown. The House passed a bill co-sponsored by Issa and Holmes Norton to give D.C. temporary budget control, but the Senate has not acted on it, with Democratsobjecting to piecemeal measures and instead called for a resolution to fund the government in its entirety.
“It is not the Affordable Care Act. It is not appropriations. It is an item that has simply been caught in the middle of otherwise very difficult problems to solve,” Issa said in his speech at the rally.
When asked if Democratic leadership was out of touch with the plight of Washington residents, Holmes Norton responded, “No. They’re our best friends. That’s why we’re putting pressure on them.”
Norton said that the coincidence of the rally taking place in close proximity to the Senate Democrats’ news conference was not planned.