Shadow Sen. Michael Brown looks on as D.C. Vote’s Kimberly Perry addresses the media outside Harry Reid’s office. Photo by Sarah Anne Hughes.

Advocates for both the statehood and legal marijuana causes began a sit-in at Sen. Harry Reid’s office Wednesday afternoon to demand the outgoing Majority Leader offer an amendment to strip a Congressional spending bill of riders targeted at the District.

These riders include a provision that would apparently block D.C. from implementing a voter-approved initiative to legalize marijuana. The full extent of the rider’s effect — would it completely block legal marijuana, or just the ability to tax and regulate it? — is still being discussed by D.C. leaders. (Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton interprets the rider to prevent any future marijuana laws or regulation, but contends Initiative 71 is already an enacted law.) But any attempt by Congress to use its power over D.C. to overturn the will of local voters, the advocates say, is an unacceptable attack.

“This is not about marijuana. This is not about drug policy,” Kimberly Perry, executive director of the statehood non-profit D.C. Vote, said outside Reid’s office. “This is about local democracy.”

Perry was joined by Shadow Sen. Michael Brown and marijuana activist Adam Eidinger, who led the successful effort to get marijuana legalization on the November ballot. They were joined by a handful of private citizens.

“These people use the District of Columbia like a bargaining chip every time they get the opportunity,” Brown, who unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the D.C. Council, said. While Brown praised Reid for sponsoring a D.C. statehood bill (that went nowhere), he said, “We need him to stand up for us today.”

“I’m disappointed in folks that call themselves our friends and allies who sold out democracy in the District of Columbia,” Perry said, adding that they have 24 to 48 hours to convince Reid to strike the language from the spending bill. “I’m not leaving this office today until he does that.”

While D.C. Vote in the past urged the Council and Mayor to treat a budget autonomy referendum passed by voters as legal (the effort eventually failed), Perry declined to answer a question about possible local defiance of the riders: “We’ve got an opportunity right now. We need Harry Reid to strike this language from the bill. Everyone’s focused on that.”

Outgoing Mayor Vincent Gray said the matter is under review. “As Mayor, my job will be to protect the will of the people of the District of Columbia and ensure that our laws are clear and enforceable,” Mayor-elect Muriel Bowser said in a statement. “I will continue to push hard to preserve the will of the people of the District of Columbia and its lawmakers.”

As the afternoon wore on, Eidinger placed his body in front of the door to Reid’s office to block entry and exit. A short while later, Eidinger, Brown, the Drug Policy Alliance’s Dr. Malik Burnett and representatives from D.C. Vote were granted a meeting with Reid policy advisor George Holman.

According to people in the meeting, Holman — a D.C. resident Eidinger says voted for Initiative 71 — said he agreed to pass on the message to Reid, but did not specify the chances of Reid offering an amendment to strike the language. “He said the deal was done,” Burnett said, adding that others in the meeting pushed back on the claim. But Holman, according to people in the meeting, also said he’s uncertain if the omnibus package will make it through the House.

Because of the high national and international interest in the marijuana initiative’s passage, Burnett said “it’s a critical moment” for Democrats to stand up on this issue.

The D.C. Cannabis Campaign is organizing a march to protest the rider, scheduled to begin at the Department of Justice headquarters at 6 p.m.