A coalition of Democratic senators has called on the Treasury Department to revive a long-planned redesign that would place Harriet Tubman on the U.S. $20 bill, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this month the department was not pursuing the change.
The effort dates back to a 2016 announcement from the Obama administration that Tubman - who was born into slavery in the early 1820s and later helped hundreds of enslaved people escape - would replace former President Andrew Jackson on the $20 note. Under that plan, Tubman would have been the first African American depicted on the face of U.S. paper currency.
In a letter to Secretary Bessent, senators led by Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said the Treasury’s decision abandons years of work and public engagement that had secured bipartisan support for honoring Tubman on the bill.
"The process to celebrate Tubman through our currency included extensive public engagement and bipartisan recognition of her extraordinary contributions to our nation, but your recent decision ignores that and abandons years of work at Treasury to honor her legacy," the group of senators wrote.
The senators pressed Bessent to "immediately reconsider and resume plans to create the new bill without further delay," and asked the Treasury to explain what informed the department's decision.
Secretary Bessent had said earlier this month that the Treasury was "not at present" planning to place Tubman on the $20 bill, halting what the senators described as a decade-long effort. That campaign had drawn support across party lines up to the point the Treasury signaled it would not move forward.
The pause comes as some officials within the current administration have advocated for placing President Donald Trump’s image on a proposed $250 bill tied to the nation’s 250th anniversary. Treasury officials have acknowledged that such a step would require legislation from Congress to permit living persons to appear on U.S. paper currency.
Separately, the government is producing a $1 coin bearing President Trump’s image to commemorate the U.S. 250th anniversary. That coin was authorized under a 2020 commemorative coin law signed by Trump during his first term.
No new individual has been added to the faces of U.S. paper currency since 1928, and the senators’ appeal frames the Tubman redesign as the culmination of sustained, bipartisan work that now faces unexpected reversal. The letter demands clarification from Treasury on the administrative rationale for shelving the plan.
Lawmakers’ requests and the debates inside the administration highlight a rare intersection of currency design, public commemoration and legislative authority over who may appear on U.S. paper money.