Andrew Mollenbeck, wtop.com

WASHINGTON – Will work, without food.

For the past week, four Occupy D.C. protesters have been on a hunger strike while they push for voting rights in the District.

“A hunger strike is no more extreme than disenfranchised citizens to the tune of 600,000,” says Adrian Parsons, one of the four who stopped eating last Thursday.

“I feel sound,” he says. “I’m really surprised that at this point — day 7 — that we are at the level of capacity that we are at.”

The group started the hunger strike at McPherson Square. It has taken trips to Capitol Hill to campaign for the District’s budget and legislative autonomy.

Participant Sam Jewler says they were hoping to meet with House Speaker John Boehner to ask him not to place any restrictions on the District’s budget. House Republicans are likely to continue a ban on the district using local tax dollars to fund abortions for poor women.

Jewler says Boehner’s staff refused to meet with them, so the protesters blocked the door, wearing stickers over their mouths that read “Taxation Without Representation.”

The encampment has now moved to St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church in Mt. Pleasant.

“We decided to move inside when it became too cold to sustain the hunger strike outdoors,” says Joseph Gray, who joined the others in the hunger strike a day later. “The cold makes you burn a lot more calories than you need to.”

The protesters believe voting rights for the District is a unifying issue and may even have appeal to Tea Party supporters, who would oppose taxes without representation.

“The way we see it is it’s not really a Democrat or Republican issue,” says Kelly Mears.

“To try to frame this problem of disenfranchisement for the residents of D.C. as a political issue is kind of wrong-minded in a sense,” he says.

“We see it as a moral issue.”

The group also believes its hunger strike can last at least two more weeks.

“We’ve spoken to medical professionals that feel — since we are doing the right things drinking a lot of water, getting electrolytes, taking multivitamins — that we wouldn’t have a problem lasting a month,” Gray says.

“After you get past the first three days or so, the hunger pangs go away, you just get kind of a general tiredness, joint pain when you don’t move around enough,” he says.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Follow Andrew Mollenbeck and WTOP on Twitter.

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