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Despite initial misgivings with the idea, Mayor Vince Gray used his weekly radio address yesterday to endorse an April 23 referendum that would amend the Home Rule Charter to allow city officials more flexibility in spending locally raised dollars.

“Next week, District residents will have a unique opportunity to emancipate ourselves— even if only symbolically—from the yoke of the federal government when it comes to spending our own money. During the special election being held next Tuesday, April 23, District voters will cast ballots in a race for an at-large seat on the D.C. Council and for a referendum that would amend the District’s charter to grant us the authority to spend our own locally-raised funds, regardless of whether Congress has approved a federal budget,” said Gray in the address.

“[N]ow that the measure is on the ballot, I believe the best course of action is to vote for it. This would send a signal to Congress, the country and the world that we are sick and tired of the special burdens imposed on the District—burdens that no other city, county or state in America has to shoulder,” he added.

When the idea was first floated by two D.C. voting rights organizations last year, Gray and D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton responded cooly to the idea. They worried that pushing budget autonomy via a referendum would anger members of Congress currently working to pass a budget autonomy bill, and that it could potentially lead D.C. to violate federal law. Gray went as far as to send D.C. Attorney General Irv Nathan to argue against allowing the measure to be put on the ballot, a fight he ended up losing.

But since the board’s decision, Gray has changed his tune, and is now asking residents to vote to approve the change to the charter. If it passes, D.C. will be able to spend its locally raised funds without explicit congressional approval. All told, that amounts to over $5 billion.

“In a day and age when Congress lurches from one crisis to the next, it is all the more apparent that we don’t need to get caught in the crossfire. So, I’m asking D.C. residents to go out and vote for the budget-autonomy referendum,” he said.