However, 1968 was a presidential and congressional election year, and President Lyndon B. Johnson wished to see the Democratically controlled United States Congress pass highway reauthorization legislation that would demonstrate that he and members of his party were governing effectively and able to secure federal dollars for local projects.

[6] Kluczynski's strategy worked: The powerful House Rules Committee approved the highway bill for debate with the Inner Loop and bridge restrictions included.

Several stand-alone pieces of legislation (S. 3381, S. 2888, S. 3418) were introduced in the United States Senate to advance various highway aid reauthorization schemes.

The Senate bill added an administration-requested program to ease the impact of urban highways by providing funds for the acquisition of rights-of-way so that no development would occur on them.

Additionally, the House bill required that D.C. complete its highway system, added 3,000 miles (4,800 km) to the interstate system,[10] and funded a Maryland proposal to construct a Fort Washington Parkway along the north/eastern shore of the Potomac River from the D.C. boundary south to Fort Washington, Maryland.

Members of the Senate worried that this would set a precedent in which Congress would become involved in planning the routes of highways and location of bridges throughout the country.

[17] Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall hinted that he found the relaxation of environmental protections so odious that he, too, would counsel Johnson to veto the bill.

One lawsuit alleged that illegal political pressure had been applied to various federal and city agencies in order to get them to approve a bridge at the Three Sisters location.

After a lengthy and provocative trial that led to explosive media headlines, Judge John J. Sirica of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on August 27, 1970, that illegal political pressure had been applied to secure the bridge's placement over the Three Sisters.

[36] Although the District of Columbia declined to appeal, the federal government asked the Supreme Court of the United States to intervene on January 17, 1972.

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger filed a concurring opinion in which he supported the court's denial of certiorari.

Burger's concurrence was widely interpreted as indicating that he was willing to uphold the Nixon-administration supported anti-busing legislation, which removed desegregation busing as a means of ensuring equal education for minorities.

Burger quickly amended his concurrence—an extremely rare event—to add the words "in this respect" to the final sentence of his concurrence.

He thereby made it clear that he believed Congress should only remove the Three Sisters Bridge from the jurisdiction of the courts, not the busing issue.