Senate Seeks To Stop Inaugural Tix Scalping
The Senate last night voted to pass legislation making it illegal to resell or counterfeit tickets to Barack Obama's inauguration next week. Should the measure become law, inaugural ticket scalpers would face a fine and/or a year in prison.
Feinstein wrote the bill in response to reports that tickets being sold on Craigslist and other sites. They are fetching $500 or more online.
Politico's Ben Smith reports that a lot of the selling has come from the pool of 240,000 free inauguration tickets that are mostly given out by members of Congress to friends, donors or the public.
"I believe the scalping of inaugural tickets runs contrary to the spirit of this historic Inauguration," Feinstein told Politico.
It's not known at this point whether this ban will become law by Tuesday. The Associated Press reports that prospects that it will be taken up and passed by the House before Mr. Obama's swearing in are uncertain.
It also should be noted that there is an exceptions in the bill for tickets sold after the event (presumably as souvenirs) or tickets sold by directly by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
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