U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)
It’s a national event on display for the world, but one man gets to make a bulk of the decisions: Senator Chuck Schumer from New York, as the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee and the head of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, will be present on the stage next to Obama and Biden as the morning’s Master of Ceremonies and will deliver the call to order and welcoming remarks to the gathered crowd, expected to be about 800,000 people.
With his duty to plan the inaugural program, that means a hefty dose of love toward his home state, which he served as a Congressman between 1981 and 1998 and as a Senator ever since. Schumer was responsible for putting together the program of performers for the swearing-in ceremony and the menu for the Congressional luncheon that follows, which are full of New York-centric acts (the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir) and lunch accouterments (Hudson Valley apple pie and wine from the Finger Lakes).