As the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama draws near, New Jersey Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg have issued a reminder that the swearing-in ceremony in Washington, D.C. is free and open to the public.

Tickets are only needed for seating in the reserved section of the National Mall in front of the Capitol Building. The rest of the Mall has no seating restrictions and will be equipped with large-screen monitors and speakers.

Due to extremely high demand for tickets for the reserved seating section and the fact that Senate offices will only receive a very limited allotment, the senators' offices will no longer be taking ticket requests after midnight tonight, Monday, Nov. 24.

As of Nov. 20, the senators' offices had received combined requests for approximately 90,000 tickets.

To learn more about the inaugural ceremony, see http://menendez.senate.gov, http://lautenberg.senate.gov, www.inaugural.senate.gov or call (202) 224-2228.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee has not been set up yet and more details about the parade will be available when it is.

“We want to remind everyone who is interested in taking part in this historic day that they can do so, regardless of whether they have a ticket to the reserved area of the Mall or not,” said senators Menendez and Lautenberg in their statement.