Mayoral hopeful and D.C. Council Chairman Vince Gray called on Congress and the Obama administration to give District residents a vote as the president signed sweeping financial reform legislation Wednesday.

“What about us” Gray asked. “When will financial reform come to the residents of the District of Columbia in the form of ending taxation without representation?”

Since the beginning of the year, D.C.’s 600,000 residents have paid $2 billion in federal taxes, he said.

Gray said he hopes that President Obama’s signing of the bill near a sign that keeps a running tally of the dollars District residents have paid to the federal government will get federal lawmakers “thinking hard about the reform that is needed in the nation’s capital to give our residents the same rights as all other taxpaying Americans.”

District shadow senator Michael Brown recently told The Washington Examiner that he hopes his bid to become an at-large councilman will focus attention on D.C.’s quest for statehood.