In the top example - I made the place holder the same size it would be on the page where the buttons would show. As you can see the same button that expands on the second example does not show the sub categories when clicked.
So it appears I need to expand the html holder to be the same size as what is needed for expansion.
In the middle page example, I expanded the html place holder to the space needed to display the sub menus. As you can see it covers what is under for the entire space of the html placeholder.