Don't pay for a free ticket. That's the message I got from Senator Ken Salazar's office. Like ever other lawmaker on Capital Hill... he's getting thousands of calls from constituents. They all want to attend the inaugural swearing-in ceremony of Barrack Obama.
Every senator gets 393 tickets. Members of Congress willl get less than 200 tickets each.
So you can call Salazar's office and request a ticket, but don't count on getting one. The Senator and his staff are trying to figure out the fairest way to hand them out.
The phones are ringing off the hook here at Senator Chuck Schumer's office, too.
News of brokers offering tickets for sky-high prices had Senator Dianne Feinstein threatening to introduce legislation punishing sellers with 100-thousand dollar fines and serious jail time.
Feinstein say,s "These tickets are supposed to be free for the people. No one should have to pay for them."
Tickets to the inauguration won't be given to lawmakers till about a week before the event in January... So Katie Carrol with the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado advises... be a smart consumer.
Caroll says, "I think we would rather not have people go online to try and get tickets because the possiblity for being duped is pretty high."
Senator Salazar's staff says if you've gotta be in Washington for the historic event... be ready for three things... cold weather, large crowd, and the possiblity of watching the ceremony from the Mall on a jumbotron.