By Hannah Hess and JM Rieger

The District of Columbia’s “No Taxation Without Representation” license places can apparently be quite jolting to tourists, but perhaps not in the way advocates hope. An Oklahoma woman who identified herself as “Donna” called into C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” program on Aug. 1, griping about a three-day family vacation to the District and the many things that “appalled” her family, including the license plates. Donna told Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., that she saw alcoholics and people sleeping on the streets and said her family “couldn’t find a park bench to sit on” because of the large homeless population. Norton, a lawyer and civil rights activist in her 12th term representing the District, had a long list of positives about her hometown to rebuff the caller’s claims.