Senators urge Janet Yellen to prioritize a $20 invoice redesign with Harriet Tubman.

Efforts to make Harriet Tubman the face of the $ 20 bill were bipartisan this week when two senators urged Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen to prioritize the proposed redesign, which stalled during the Trump administration .

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, and Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, sent a letter to Ms. Yellen this week stating that America’s currency should reflect the diversity of the country. They complained that the Obama administration’s 2016 plan to unveil a $ 20 bill design with Ms. Tubman’s picture on the front in 2020 was not implemented by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

“We sincerely hope this is no longer the case and encourage Ms. Tubman to prioritize before working on other redesigns,” they wrote. “We stand ready to support your efforts to ensure that this outstanding figure in our nation’s history receives the recognition he has so long earned.”

The Biden government said last month that Ms. Yellen would look into ways to expedite the process of adding Harriet Tubman’s portrait to the front of the $ 20 bill.

“It is important that our money reflects the history and diversity of our country,” said Jen Psaki, White House press secretary.

A Treasury Department spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment whether the department-overseen engraving and printing bureau had resumed the redesign with Ms. Tubman.

Work on the redesign had begun under the supervision of former President Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, but Mr Mnuchin said improving the security features of the new banknotes would take precedence over changes to the imagery. Mr Trump had previously expressed his opposition to the idea of ​​replacing President Andrew Jackson, a fellow populist, with Ms. Tubman, a former slave and abolitionist.

The Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence Steering Committee put forward plans in 2013 to redesign the $ 10 and $ 5 bills in front of the $ 20 bills.

Ms. Shaheen and several House Democrats were vocal supporters of the initiative to replace Mr. Jackson with Ms. Tubman as the face of the $ 20. Few Republican lawmakers have shown public support for the change.

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