WASHINGTON (CBS5) -
The 113th Congress was sworn in Thursday and among them were some freshman lawmakers from Arizona.
Rep. John Boehner was elected for a second term as Speaker of the House.
He choked up when he talked about the oath they all take.
"Put more simply, we are sent here not to be something, but to do something," Boehner said.
This is the first time in history that the Democratic Caucus in the House will be made up of a majority of women, minorities and members of the LGBT community.
Before Boehner was reaffirmed, the new members of the U.S. Senate were sworn in including new Arizona Senator Jeff Flake.
He's just moving chairs from the House to the Senate and described the experience as "weird."
"It has been coming on for a while because we've had session ever since the election really, so I've tried to be both in the Senate and the House, learning the ropes here and still voting in the House," Flake said during an interview with CBS 5 News on Thursday morning.
His last vote was "no" to the fiscal cliff compromise because he said it didn't include any serious spending cuts.
"My role in the Senate will be similar to my role in the House. I hope to be one who's calling for a decrease in spending. We cannot go on like this. I fear that we will have a market reaction and we are really going to be out of control here in Congress because we will just be responding to the market," Flake said.
Former state lawmaker Kyrsten Sinema was sworn in as the new representative from the brand-new District 9.
The Washington Post has tapped her as one of the new members to watch.
Sinema said her day has been a whirlwind since taking her seat at the U.S. Capitol. She said she wants to get right to work on her number one issue and will reach across the aisle to get it done.
"And I also want to focus on mortgages and foreclosures. It's a really big issue for Arizonans. I was really honored to be appointed to the financial services committee, so I hope to make some headway on that committee to make sure we have mortgages and lending practices that are helpful for middle-class families," Sinema said.
She said in two months when the debt ceiling debate heats up, she wants her group of freshman lawmakers to remind the current house leadership how important it is to break through the gridlock.
One of the things all of Arizona's delegates in Congress will have to deal with is a shockingly low approval rating.
A recent Gallup poll showed that the IRS is more popular than the last Congress, so are lawyers and even Paris Hilton. In fact, Congress is only slightly more popular than Fidel Castro, according to the poll.
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