House Members to Get 198 Inaugural Tickets Apiece
- By Alison McSherry and Emily Yehle
- Roll Call Staff
- Nov. 17, 2008, 12:11 p.m.
House Members each will get 198 tickets for the inauguration — a number dwarfed by the thousands of requests received by many offices since the Nov. 4 election.
Officials announced the number during an orientation session for Members-elect. Only 21 of those tickets will be for seats, the remainder will permit ticket-holders to stand inside the security perimeter.
Based on that allotment, House Members would collectively receive about 86,000 of the 240,000 tickets available for the event. Thousands more will be allotted to Senators, who will probably get more than their House counterparts because they represent entire states.
Carole Florman, spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, said the committee does not comment on the number of tickets given.
But she said the same number of tickets will be given to each Member of the House for the 111th Congress.
Members have been inundated with requests for tickets since Barack Obama won the presidency, prompting some to call for extra tickets and additional events around the city.
The tickets will stay locked away in a secure room until they are distributed in January.
