Thousands Request Tickets to Obama’s Swearing-In
CONN TICKETS
Norwalk Hour
Jordan Zappala
Boston University Washington News Service
11/19/08
WASHINGTON – With Inauguration Day still two months away, tickets to the swearing-in ceremony are already nearly impossible to obtain.
Connecticut residents should be able to call or e-mail their members’ congressional offices to request one of the estimated 2,000 free tickets given to the Connecticut delegation for the Jan.20 ceremony, but the number of residents who have already done so reaches well into the thousands.
Fourth District constituents are in a less-than-ideal position. With Christopher Shays on his way out of Washington and Jim Himes not yet secure in a Capitol Hill office, area residents have even less of an opportunity to get their names on the inaugural list.
There “really isn’t a mechanism in place” for newly elected members to take ticket requests from constituents, said Carole Florman, spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, which organizes all inaugural ceremonies held at the U.S. Capitol. Often, outgoing members take requests and pass on a list to the incoming member, she said, although they aren’t required to do so.
Rep.-elect Jim Himes does have an e-mail alert system on his home page, where 4th District residents can sign up to be informed on how to acquire the sought-after tickets – a system Florman said she was encouraging.
Dave Natonski, press secretary for Shays, said that he is not keeping a list of interested callers and instead telling 4th District constituents to contact the offices of Connecticut Sens. Christopher Dodd and Joe Lieberman.
The number of constituents requesting tickets from Lieberman’s office has topped a thousand, but an aide estimated that the office will receive only 400 tickets, leaving many residents who make the trip to Washington to watch the festivities on giant television screens posted on the National Mall and across the parade route.
In all, 240,000 tickets are available for the inaugural ceremony, but the largest portion go to the president-elect and vice president-elect. The remaining tickets are distributed to members of the new Congress, with each senator receiving a greater number of tickets than each House member, Florman said. If lucky enough to reserve tickets, constituents must pick them up in person at the congressional offices in Washington during the week leading up to Inauguration Day, she said.
None of the Connecticut offices has divulged exactly how the tickets will be doled out – whether by lottery or first-come, first-served – and that decision is left completely to congressional discretion.
Don Carlson, transition chief of staff for Himes, said that the Connecticut delegation will be meeting soon to come up with a consistent policy for ticket distribution in an effort to avoid any appearance of impropriety regarding this historic inauguration – for which Washington officials say they expect more than 2 million visitors.
Carlson also indicated that Himes, and the delegation as a whole, will be organizing inaugural parties both in the 4th District and in Washington so that Connecticut residents can come together to experience history.
Jennifer Paul contributed to this report.
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