Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)

A Senate bill that would grant D.C. the ability the spend its own money and set its own fiscal year was pulled from consideration yesterday evening in the wake of a set of amendments introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) targeting abortion, guns and union labor in D.C. The bill, which was introduced in April by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), was scheduled to be marked up this morning.

Paul’s amendments would have codified a longstanding ban on the use of local funds for abortions, allow D.C. residents to carry concealed weapons and prohibit hiring decisions based on union membership. A similar budget autonomy bill in the House was pulled late last year after it similarly included a local abortion funding ban; in 2009 a Senate bill that would have granted D.C. a single voting seat in the House sunk after Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) added an amendment that would have gutted the city’s gun laws.

Paul, a committed abortion opponent and Tea Party favorite, told the Post that he wanted to use D.C. to make a point. “I think it’s a good way to call attention to some issues that have national implications. We don’t have [control] over the states but we do for D.C.,” he was quoted as saying.

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who asked Lieberman to pull the bill after it became obvious that the impact of Paul’s amendments would outweigh the bill’s benefits, seemed unimpressed with the Kentucky’s senator’s adherence to Tea Party principles. “Today was a pristine test of principle for those who profess allegiance to local control and federalism. The tired and phony notion that the District is a colonial-like fiefdom of the Congress, whose local laws it can overturn at will, harkens back to the worst days of American history, since repudiated by the American people,” she said in a statement.

DC Vote Executive Director Ilir Zherka called Paul’s amendments “stunning hypocrisy,” while Mayor Vince Gray, who is currently in China on city business, said they were an “insult” to the city.

Norton didn’t abandon all hope, though, saying that work would continue on a budget autonomy bill. “Nevertheless, today’s results will be helpful as we continue to chart a course to budget autonomy this Congress,” she said.