The day after Election Day 2018, when Democrats won control of the House of Representatives, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced one major impact of the power shift: she would be sending a plan to tax and regulate recreational marijuana to the D.C. Council.

The District voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2014. But every year since then, Republicans in the House have included language in a must-pass spending bill that barrs D.C. from using any of its own funds to establish a regulatory system for a commercial marijuana market. That’s why the District has a gray market for cannabis—while people can possess, grow, and use quantities of marijuana, they cannot sell it. So in place of dispensaries, D.C.’s odd limbo has resulted in marijuana pop-up events and gifting businesses.

But with Democrats in the driver’s seat in the House for the first time since 2014, local officials were optimistic that they could finally get a legal framework in place for recreational dispensaries and the like in the District.

Bowser introduced her legalization plan in May, saying at the time that “we cannot wait, we will not wait” for Congress to act. She estimated that the Council could optimistically ready the legislation in a year’s time, though “realistically, six months after that.”

And it seemed like things were going according to plan. In June, Maryland Representative Andy Harris didn’t even bother to propose the language that stymies D.C. for the House’s version of the spending bill.

But the hopeful stance that many took towards the Senate, which is still in the hands of Republicans, is much less assured. The Senate Appropriations Committee’s version of the spending bill has the very same language preventing D.C. from using its funds to create a regulatory scheme. Ironically enough, the bill advanced in the committee on the same day that District advocates were on Capitol Hill for the historic D.C. statehood hearing.

Some Democratic senators cried foul about the inclusion of the provision for the second year in a row. “I think every single Democrat and Republican on this committee would oppose a provision in these bills or any other bills that told their specific state—tell Louisiana what they must do, just Louisiana, or just New Hampshire or any other state,” said Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, according to Marijuana Moment. “I have railed against this idea of this Congress trying to micromanage the District of Columbia.”

It’s unclear which senator put the language in the bill.

“It’s maddening,” says At-large D.C. Councilmember David Grosso. “These senators think we’re their punching bag.” Every term, he has introduced legislation to tax and regulate recreational marijuana in the District, despite the fact that it would technically violate federal law for the bill to move forward.

“Local jurisdictions have the right to stand up to the federal government,” says Grosso. “We might have to subject ourselves to arrest, but it’s going to take a lot of persuading of my colleagues.” (When Bowser first implemented Initiative 71, which legalized recreational marijuana in D.C., some Republican members of Congress threatened to arrest her.)

Currently, there are no D.C. Council hearings scheduled for either Bowser’s or Grosso’s legislation. D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson has so far declined to hold hearings while the federal language is still in place, but “the hearing scheduled in itself would be a good act of defiance,” Grosso says. Bowser is also calling on the council to hold hearings this fall, according to John Falcicchio, her chief of staff.

Even though the District cannot implement a regulatory scheme until the language is no longer in the spending bill, the D.C. attorney general determined this year that the local government can at least move forward with discussing what such a system would look like.“We are confident that the mayor, the Council, and other District officials can lawfully engage in the legislative process, including the introduction of legislation and hearings, to consider the merits of sensible marijuana regulation,” a spokesperson for Karl Racine’s office said in a statement in May. “Doing so does not constitute enactment of legislation.” (This represents an evolution of opinion for Racine from 2015.)

After both the House and Senate pass their respective versions of the spending bill, members come together to reconcile the differences in the two. That’s the only hope for getting the language out of the final version.

“It’s going to be an uphill battle,” says Queen Adesuyi, the Drug Policy Alliance’s policy coordinator for national affairs.

Another wrinkle for D.C. is that House and Senate leaders announced an agreement in July to avoid sequestration, which pledges that the spending bill will have no new riders or poison pills from last year. The question is whether the District being able to regulate recreational marijuana amounts to a dealbreaker for Republicans.

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton isn’t giving up quite yet. “The 10 states that have commercialized adult-use marijuana are reaping the benefits in both tax revenue and reduction in the illegal trade,” she tells DCist in an emailed statement. “I have succeeded in removing these anti-home-rule riders from the House bill, and I am now working with appropriators to keep it out of the final bill.”

Bowser’s team is similarly still reaching out on Capitol Hill, trying to make the case that D.C.’s gray market is a public safety issue. “We have high hopes that as negotiations continue on the federal spending bill, our Congressional allies will advocate for the removal of the marijuana rider,” says Falcicchio, Bowser’s chief of staff, in a written statement. “We know that establishing a legal cannabis regime for adult use would enhance public safety, dry up the illegal Andy Harris market, and create opportunity for D.C. residents. That’s why Mayor Bowser introduced her Safe Cannabis legislation and calls on the Council to hold hearings on it in the fall.”

Some local marijuana activists are planning a permitted demonstration on Tuesday at the Capitol. “We want to see Democratic leaders as well as friendly cannabis Republicans to actually get [the language] taken out,” says Adam Eidinger, co-founder of DCMJ, which led the effort to legalize recreational marijuana. DCMJ will be bringing its 51-foot joint (sans marijuana) to the east side of the Capitol lawn on October 8 around 11:30 a.m. “We are spending the next few days encouraging like-minded lawmakers to speak out,” he says.

Even if the House and Senate do not agree on the final spending bill, that wouldn’t help efforts to commercialize marijuana in the District. In that case, the laws regulating the District would be from the previous spending bill, which similarly blocks D.C. from using its funds to regulate recreational weed.

“It’s not an ideal position to be in,” says Adesuyi.

This story has been updated with comment from John Falcicchio.