Photo by thisisbossi.

As Mayor Vince Gray, D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown, Councilmembers Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7), Sekou Biddle (D-At-Large) and Michael A. Brown (Ind.-At-Large), Shadow Representative Mike Panetta and 33 other people were getting their arrest paperwork, the questions shifted to another topic: where was everyone else? There were some high-profile absences from the sit-in — namely, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and the city’s other Councilmembers.

Norton was the biggest omission from the evening’s proceedings. After all, she had been leading the public fury against the budget deal in recent days, even encouraging residents of the District to tell Congress to “go straight to hell.” But Norton, as Ben Pershing reports, backed out of participating — despite tweeting that she was on her way to the protest.

On Tuesday, [Norton’s] office explained the discrepancy: Her staff had used her Twitter feed to say that she was going to the rally because they assumed she was, but she had actually already decided not to go because she didn’t want it to look like the demonstration – which was organized by the advocacy group DC Vote – had been spearheaded by her.

Erm, okay. Norton’s fairly hollow logic aside, many were also left wondering where other members of the Council were during the proceedings. What we know for sure: Ward 1’s Jim Graham was attending a meeting at the Community for Creative Non-Violence shelter, while Ward 5’s Harry Thomas, Jr. was apparently attending his son’s baseball game during the protest, both of which sound like legit excuses. As for Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) — well, let’s just say I don’t think anyone is too broken up that he wasn’t arrested. (I mean, again.)

So that leaves us with Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large) and David Catania (Ind.-At-Large). Mendelson’s the chair of the Council’s Committee on Judiciary, so he’s got a viable political excuse not to be tossed in the clink, even temporarily. But what of Cheh (who said she regretted not being able to attend), Evans and Catania? An interesting rumor that’s been tossed around is that perhaps those three — all lawyers, each with a well-paying part-time job outside the Council — might have kept their distance because being arrested could potentially put their statuses as licensed attorneys in hot water. The D.C. Bar’s rules of professional conduct do state that a licensed attorney could be disciplined for engaging “in conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice” — though that clause is meant to be “interpreted flexibly.” It’s incredibly unlikely that a misdeameanor arrest would have caused trouble for any of any of the three.

But hey, with Vince Gray promising this afternoon that “there will be other opportunities” for District political figures to get arrested, maybe those that stood on the sideline yesterday are just waiting their turn.