Last month, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin disappointed advocates of putting the image of 19th-century abolitionist and slave liberator Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill when he told Congress that—for technical reasons—the unveiling of a new design for the currency would be delayed from its original date of 2020 until 2026, and that the new currency would not be introduced into circulation until 2028 at the earliest. And, oh, by the way, the new bill might not include Tubman’s engraved portrait. It seems that Mnuchin was being dishonest. In fact, according to The New York Times, a working design of a Tubman $20 bill was already available when Mnuchin was appointed to his post.
It crossed the mind of some people when Mnuchin made his remarks that this was just one more instance of Donald Trump dumping a policy move simply because it had been made by President Barack Obama. It was during Obama’s second term that the decision was made to put Tubman on the face of the $20 and put on the bill’s reverse the portrait of the slave-owning, Indian-hating President Andrew Jackson that has appeared on the front of the bill since 1928. It would be the first U.S. currency to depict an African American.
To nobody’s surprise, the decision was viewed in some right-wing quarters as politicizing our currency. Trump himself called the decision “pure political correctness,” as if no politics have been involved in previous choices of who appears on our bills and coins. He suggested Tubman should perhaps appear on the $2 bill, currency that many Americans are surprised to learn still exists.
Mnuchin has asserted that the six-year delay was necessary because of the need to add new anti-counterfeiting security features to the bill. However, Alan Rappeport at theTimes reports that a preliminary design was finished by late 2016:
In fact, work on the new $20 note began before Mr. Trump took office, and the basic design already on paper most likely could have satisfied the goal of unveiling a note bearing Tubman’s likeness on next year’s centennial of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. An image of a new $20 bill, produced by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and obtained by The New York Times from a former Treasury Department official, depicts Tubman in a dark coat with a wide collar and a white scarf. [...]
The development of the note did not stop there. A current employee of the bureau, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, personally viewed a metal engraving plate and a digital image of a Tubman $20 bill while it was being reviewed by engravers and Secret Service officials as recently as May 2018. This person said that the design appeared to be far along in the process.
Rappeport talked with several unnamed current and former Treasury officials who said Mnuchin had decided to delay the introduction of the design for fear that Trump might decide to cancel the switch from Jackson to Tubman outright and thus spur more controversy.
Tubman was born in Maryland, and Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has announced he’s going to try to get Mnuchin to change his mind about the delay. But it’s Donald Trump who really needs convincing. If somehow Obama’s role in this could be erased and Trump given full credit and a parade for introducing the design next year and pushing the bill to enter general circulation sooner than the end of the next decade, he might eagerly become Tubman’s most prominent backer.
A big hunk of his base would not much care for that.
But getting Tubman on the $20 bill is not only the prerogative of the squatter in the White House. Congress could force the matter. For four years, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings and Republican Rep. John Katko have been pushing the idea, introducing the Harriet Tubman Tribute Act in 2017 and again this year. Seven of the bill’s 21 sponsors are Republicans.
But so far, the House Financial Services Committee, to which the bill has been assigned, has held no hearing on the matter, either when the House was in Republican hands or since Democrats took over in January. The firebrand Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters is chairwoman of that committee, and she of course has a full plate. But a couple of hours discussing what’s really behind the delay of the Tubman $20 bill would be enlightening, even if our fake president chooses to label any testimony about it “fake news.”
