While he supports D.C. home rule, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters on Tuesday that a shutdown of the federal government would have damaged the District of Columbia more than the ban on the use of D.C. taxpayer funds for abortion services.
The agreement reached by Democrats and Republicans late Friday to keep the government running included a rider which banned the use of locally collected taxes being used to fund abortions. D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and 40 other activists were arrested yesterday when they blocked Constitution Avenue to protest the limits the deal imposed on the city’s self-governance.
“The state of Nevada, every state would have suffered significantly from a shutdown of government operations, but no state — no state — would suffer the irreplicable harm that the District of Columbia would suffer as a result of a government shutdown,” Reid said when asked
“We worked very hard to keep the government open, which is really the best thing we could do for the District of Columbia,” Reid said. “The issue that the President agreed on, that was a five month deal, actually until the end of this fiscal year.”
“And though I’ve been for D.C. statehood for 15 years,” Reid continued, “I think what we did to keep government open should make the people of the District of Columbia very happy.”
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) told reporters that the rider was “not a dealbreaker, but it is really very frustrating.”
“I believe in home rule for the District of Columbia, I believe in statehood for the District of Columbia, and to continue to micromanage the District is outrageous,” Mikulski said.
Additional reporting by Benjy Sarlin.
