Third Dem senator backs Harriet Tubman for $10 bill

Shaheen, as well as Maryland Democratic Sens. Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski, the Senate’s longest-serving woman, have introduced legislation “to require the Secretary of the Treasury to redesign $10 Federal Reserve notes so as to include a likeness of Harriet Tubman.”

 

{mosads}The legislation comes after Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced last month that the federal government would redesign the $10 bill, and add an image of a woman alongside Alexander Hamilton, who is currently on the currency.

 

Shaheen, at the time, called the announcement “a big step forward.”

“Young girls across this country will soon be able to see an inspiring woman on the ten dollar bill who helped shape our country into what it is today and know that they too can grow up and do something great for their country,” she said in a statement last month. 

Shaheen has led the charge in the Senate to get a woman on U.S. currency. She previously introduced legislation to direct the Treasury Department to establish a panel to pick a woman whose portrait would appear on the $20. 

She also backed the “Woman on the 20s” campaign, which announced in May that Tubman had won its online poll of who should replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.

Tubman, who was born in Maryland, was also one of the four female New Yorkers included in a poll by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to help pick which woman will be on the $10 bill. 

Hillary Clinton, considered the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, also backed putting Tubman on U.S. currency earlier this year.