President Biden’s Treasury Department is considering ways to speed up the process of adding Harriet Tubman’s portrait to the front of the $ 20 bill after the Trump administration allowed the Obama era initiative to lapse, said Jen Psaki, press secretary of the White House on Monday.
The decision to have Tubman replace Andrew Jackson as the face of the $ 20 bill was set in motion in 2016 by the Treasury secretary at the time, Jacob Lew. President Donald J. Trump opposed the idea, and his Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin stopped working on this part of the currency’s redesign, arguing that adding new security features to money was a more urgent priority. Mnuchin said the banknotes with new images could not be released until 2028 and that a future Treasury secretary would make the decision to replace Jackson.
The Treasury Department, which Biden appointed Janet L. Yellen to lead, plans to accelerate that schedule.
“The Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman in front of the new $ 20 bills,” said Psaki. “It is important that our money reflects the history and diversity of our country.”
Mr. Trump professed to be a fan of Andrew Jackson, a fellow populist, and was a fierce opponent of altering historical images and statues.
Mnuchin’s decision to delay change drew reaction from some Democrats in Congress and triggered an investigation by the Inspector General of the Treasury as to whether the process faced undue political interference. The investigation found no irregularities on the part of Mr. Mnuchin.
According to Lew’s plan, the new design was due to be unveiled in 2020 at the centenary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
Preliminary drawings of the note obtained by The New York Times revealed that – before Mr. Trump took office – conceptual work on a note with the image of Tubman on the front and a statue of Jackson on the back was already in progress.