Under standard practice, the House Judiciary Committee invites three witnesses selected by the majority and one selected by the minority. At Thursday’s hearing, the Democrats invited a health care expert who could testify to the broader impacts of the proposal. Nadler wanted Franks to divert from the practice, as chairmen have done in the past, according to a parliamentarian counsulted by the committee’s Democratic spokesperson, and allow Norton to be the minority’s second witness.

“No member would tolerate Congress telling their state . . . how to spend their tax dollars, yet this bill would do just that to the citizens of our nation’s capital,” Nadler pleaded, calling the denial of the request “another example of the abuse of power. . . . Never in my more than 20 years as a member of this body have I seen a colleague treated as contemptuously as our colleague from the District of Columbia is being treated today.”

Franks welcomed Norton to the audience then reminded his Democratic colleagues that they were “free to invite Ms. Norton as their witness” and noted that he had personally extended that invite. He invited Norton to submit any materials she would like for the hearing’s record.

Franks said there was no reason to call Norton as a witness, “since the bill only mentions the District of Columbia to make clear that funds appropriated by Congress for the District of Columbia shall be, of course, considered federal funds — just like all other federal funds.”

Prior to the hearing, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray made an appearance on Capitol Hill to insist that such reasoning is hypocritical. He called the bill another “odious example” of why the city needs democracy, adding multiple times that he hated having to “make the pilgrimage” to the halls of Congress to defend the city’s use of its own locally raised dollars.