The moment Washington's Mayor is arrested while protesting Obama's budget

Washington Mayor Vincent Gray was arrested during a protest at Capitol Hill over the city's potential loss of funds for abortion services.

Around 41 of the150 demonstrators protesting details of the federal budget deal, which involve how the District of Columbia government can spend its money, were arrested.

Mayor Gray said the deal that would cut $38 billion in federal spending for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year violates the rights of residents of Washington, which comes largely under Congress' jurisdiction.

The measure includes a ban against using local and federal funding for abortions for low-income mothers in Washington.

According to City Hall, during the protest Mayor Gray told the crowd: 'This is an absolute travesty. D.C. deserves to be free. All we want to do is spend our own money.

'Why should women in the District of Columbia be subjected to a set of rules that no other woman is subjected to?'

Washington is still regrouping from the political tug-of-war that led to the near shutdown of the federal government at the weekend, but looming on the horizon are bigger battles over the debt ceiling and the 2012 federal budget.

Several city council members were also arrested and charged with blocking a street near a Senate office building, the Capitol Police said.


Protesters chanted 'Free D.C.' and 'We can't take it no more' throughout the demonstration.

The federal budget deal, which is slated to be voted on by Congress this week before going to President Barack Obama for his signature, prevented a shutdown that would have idled 800,000 federal workers, closed national parks and monuments and delayed paychecks for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to Politico, tensions have long run high between D.C. officials and congressional Republicans for years.

The GOP has largely opposed the District’s effort to gain a full-voting member in the House. The district’s member of Congress, currently Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat, can vote only in committee.

The budget also includes a provision that allocates money for vouchers for low-income students to attend private schools, a project spearheaded by Boehner and opposed by Mayor Gray.