C6 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2020
OLIVER CONTRERAS FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTThe wheels keep turning
The U.S. flag is reflected in a kiosk near the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday. Temperatures should drop Sunday, with some rain possible in the
evening or early Monday. Forecast, C12
and other partners on plans.
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who
chairs the JCCIC, estimated the
crowds at the swearing-in cer-
emony and parade down Penn-
sylvania Avenue could be small
by historic standards. The event
in the past has drawn hundreds
of thousands to more than a
million to Washington.
“It’s going to be less than
200,000, that’s for sure,” Blunt
said.
In the coming weeks, Presi-
dent-elect Joe Biden is expected
to launch a Presidential Inaugu-
ral Committee that will work
with the congressional commit-
tee and local partners to rise to a
moment defined by competing
political and public health needs.
The joint bipartisan committee
and partnered District agencies
have spent the better part of the
year preparing for the formal
launch regardless of the Election
Day outcome.
The joint committee said guest
lists and entertainment, includ-
ing any plans for a concert at the
Lincoln Memorial typical for
first-term presidents, are still
being determined. But officials
have already taken steps to pre-
pare for a swearing-in ceremony
and a parade down Pennsylvania
Avenue.
The National Park Service, the
agency that handles permitting
for gatherings on federal proper-
ty, has issued a permit for the
construction of the inaugural
facilities in Lafayette Square,
INAUGURATION FROM C1 which includes the reviewing
stand where the president
watches the parade and a media
riser.
There has yet to be a formal
announcement about tickets for
January’s inauguration. In 2017,
tickets were required to enter the
Capitol grounds to view the
swearing-in ceremony, with
parts of the Mall open for those
without tickets. That year, the
joint congressional committee
released tickets in early January
to members of the House of
Representatives, who distributed
them to their constituents.
Some members of Congress
who are already allowing their
constituents to request tickets
for the 2021 inauguration have
made it clear in their submission
forms that they cannot guaran-
tee tickets, nor do they have
available information about the
plans for the ceremony given the
state of the coronavirus pandem-
ic.
The Walter E. Washington
Convention Center, which foryears has hosted inaugural balls,
will be unavailable for festivities
in January. It has been trans-
formed into an emergency field
hospital in preparation for a
surge in coronavirus cases.
The weather could also be an
especially big wild card. In 1909
and 1985, inauguration ceremo-
nies were forced inside by bad
winter weather. That may not be
an option this time, given the
heightened risk of spreading the
coronavirus indoors.
Officials with Biden’s transi-
tion team declined to comment
at this time.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil
Mendelson (D) urged caution in
inauguration planning given the
public health crisis. At a council
breakfast this month, he said he
had told the mayor’s office that
the council opposed the review-
ing stand because he thought it
couldn’t be safely done during
the pandemic.
“I conveyed that we don’t want
to see a reviewing stand in front
of the Wilson building,” he said,
and then asked whether the rest
of the council agreed.
Only Trayon White Sr. (D-
Ward 8) raised concerns, saying
many constituents had already
asked him about plans for
Biden’s inauguration.
“In this year of social distanc-
ing, and with the pandemic num-
bers looking worse, do we really
want a confined space in front of
the Wilson Building — where, if I
remember correctly, no members
showed up last time?” Mendel-
son asked.White said council members
would be more likely to attend
this time.
“I think no members showed
up because of who was the in-
coming president,” White said.
District agencies, meanwhile,
are in the process of devising a
plan to ensure public safety dur-
ing the inauguration, no matter
its scale. The U.S. Secret Service
is the lead agency overseeing the
operations of the inauguration.
D.C. police are responsible for
maintaining order throughout
the city.
The District government has
historically brought in law en-
forcement officers from across
the country as reinforcement
during the inauguration — atradition complicated this time
by the pandemic. Officials with
the office of D.C. Mayor Muriel E.
Bowser (D) say they are working
to determine how to shore up its
police force in a way that is
covid-compliant.
“We will have to see where we
are with the public health guid-
ance and make sure we are able
to adhere to that guidance,” said
John Falcicchio, Bowser’s chief of
staff and deputy mayor for plan-
ning and economic development.
Chris Beyrer, professor of epi-
demiology at Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public
Health, said the inauguration
could come at a particularly
bleak moment in the pandemic.
He said the outdoor portion of
the event could probably go for-
ward if guests wore masks and
practiced social distancing, but
balls and other indoor events
could turn into superspreader
events.
“Unfortunately, where we are
is still very much in the steep
part of the expansion curve,”
Beyrer said. “There’s every rea-
son to think, I’m sorry to say, that
the rest of November, December
and January are going to contin-
ue to be high transmission
months.”
It is also still unclear how
many demonstrators will come
to the District during inaugura-
tion week. As of mid-November,
six groups had applied for per-
mits to protest or rally for the
president-elect between Jan. 14
and 23, according Park Service
spokesman Mike Litterst.
None of the permits have been
issued yet. Litterst said they will
be issued on a first-come, first-
serve basis after the Presidential
Inaugural Committee decides on
the land it needs for ceremonies.
It is not unusual, Litterst added,
for permits to be doled out the
week before the event takes
place.
Despite the roiling health cri-
sis and concerns about unrest,
tourism officials say they have
seen “high interest” from visitors
planning to travel to the District
to celebrate the inauguration,
which they hope could inject new
life into the local economy hard-
hit by the pandemic.
“Even if covid-19 prevents
some of the typical celebratory
events, [the] inauguration will
hopefully help offset some of thedeep economic losses we’ve seen
so far,” said Elliott L. Ferguson II,
president and chief executive of
Destination DC, which promotes
the city to visitors.
But Leticia Proctor, senior vice
president of sales, marketing and
revenue management at Dono-
hoe Hospitality Services, says she
has not seen much of an uptick in
bookings for late January. Her
company, which manages more
than 2,000 hotel rooms in the
Washington region, typically
sells out over inauguration. Nor-
mally, by this time, they have
would have sold 35 to 40 percent
of their rooms. As of Wednesday,
they had only sold 6 percent of
their rooms, a reality that she
called “somewhat alarming” for
her industry.
Federal officials also hope the
event will lift a nation knocked
sideways by the coronavirus pan-
demic and a historically divisive
presidential election. The JCCIC
said the theme of the 59th swear-
ing-in ceremony will be “Our
Determined Democracy: Forging
a More Perfect Union” to illus-
trate “our continued and unbro-
ken commitment to continuity,
stability, perseverance, and de-
mocracy.”
Jim Bendat, an inaugural his-
torian and author of the book
“Democracy’s Big Day,” said
Biden’s inauguration could be as
significant as those during the
Great Depression or following
the Civil War as a means of
binding wounds and highlight-
ing the transition of power.
“It’s always an important day,
but often it’s just a big show,”
Bendat said. “There are certain
inaugurations we’ve had in our
history that have been very sig-
nificant for a variety of reasons.”
One of the most significant
ways the inauguration could
make history involves President
Trump. The president, who has
attacked the legitimacy of the
election results with baseless
conspiracy theories, has not com-
mitted to being part of the cer-
emony.
White House press secretary
Kayleigh McEnany in a Nov. 13
interview did not say whether
Trump plans to attend Biden’s
inauguration.
“I think the president will
attend his own inauguration,”
McEnany said. “He would have to
be there, in fact.”
Timothy Naftali, clinical asso-
ciate professor of history and
public service at New York Uni-
versity and former director of the
Richard Nixon Presidential Li-
brary and Museum, said he fears
the ritual of the inauguration will
become the final political norm
that Trump shatters after four
years of assaults on the institu-
tion of the presidency.
“It’s supposed to be a moment
when the political guns fall silent
and it’s in that quiet that the next
president of the country is given
the chance to inspire and start
leading us,” Naftali said. “I don’t
anticipate Donald Trump giving
it to Joe Biden.”
[email protected]
[email protected]Julie Zauzmer and Mike DeBonis
contributed to this report.59th inauguration plans clouded by a r oiling health crisis
KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST
Construction continues on the inaugural platform at the Capitol
last week. No formal announcement has been made about tickets
for January’s inauguration, which is filled with uncertainties.“Unfortunately, where
we are is still very much
in the steep part of the
expansion curve.”
Chris Beyrer, epidemiology
professor at Johns Hopkins
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