WASHINGTON - The Democratic president of the new congressional freshman class couldn't help but feel moved Monday as he watched the president of the United States take the vows of office.
"It was very stirring for me," Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Moosic, said from a post-ceremony mixer thrown at his congressional office. "I looked at these people who are the seat of power in the United States and I thought, 'We are the envy of the free world, the way we do this.' "
The new congressman mused that while surrounded by supreme court judges, members of congress and the president himself, the fact he is now part of that government finally set in.
"I think it did," Cartwright said. "I think it did. Really one of the proudest moments I remember."
Because the congressman's redrawn district now contains or reaches into six counties, the party included campaign workers from the Lehigh Valley, high school students from Scranton, college students from Wilkes-Barre and Jeffrey Dunkle, mayor of Mount Carbon.
Cartwright's office distributed the 185 tickets each member of congress receives to his constituents and about half stopped into the office afterward to meet their congressman.
A group of seniors from Scranton High School, adorned at the Cartwright mixer in matching red scarves they bought from a vendor while hustling to the ceremony, were seeing the president for the second time - he gave a speech at their school in November 2011. But seeing him sworn in was a whole different experience, they said.
"To actually be able to be there and see that," said Angela Altier, one of the red-scarved seniors. "It's something I'm going to be able to carry with me for the rest of my life."
The high school group arrived Thursday and visited the Capitol, Arlington Memorial Cemetery, the Library of Congress and most of the monuments, said Sean Curry, their history teacher and chaperone. He said students can only learn so much from a textbook.
"I can try to describe Washington, D.C., to you any number of ways but getting you here and letting you experience the pace of Washington and the sites and the history, it changes everything," said Curry, who was making his third straight school trip to the inauguration. "It's almost impossible to imagine what this city is really like until you are here."
Omeed Firouzi has immersed himself in the Washington culture since arriving a few years ago.
Originally from Trucksville, the 20-year-old graduate of Wyoming Seminary now lives there, where he is majoring in political science at George Washington University and interning for Cartwright. He said he found the symbolism of the first African-American commander-in-chief taking his second set of presidential vows on Martin Luther King Day particularly inspirational.
"If there's any inauguration we want to be here for, I think this was the one," Fironzi said.