King Of Money

Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King decided he wanted to score some cheap points by introducing legislation stopping the Treasury from putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, but not even his fellow House Republicans want to touch that one in an election year.

U.S. Rep. Steve King has introduced anamendment in Congress that would prevent Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist and supporter of women's suffrage, from replacing President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.

However, the House Rules Committee agreed Tuesday night to deny floor consideration of proposal, which would have prevented the Treasury Department from spending money to redesign paper currency or coins.

The Iowan Republican's amendment, which was first reported by the Huffington Post, would scrap the federal government's plans to replace Jackson on the $20 bill with a picture of Tubman, a black woman who was born in to slavery in 1822 and later escaped. She subsequently made repeated missions on the Underground Railroad to rescue black people from slavery. During the Civil War, she served as a Union Army scout and spy.

"It's not about Harriet Tubman, it's about keeping the picture on the $20," King said Tuesday night, according to Politico, pulling a $20 bill from his pocket and pointing at President Andrew Jackson. "Y'know? Why would you want to change that? I am a conservative, I like to keep what we have."

Politico quoted King as saying it is "racist" and "sexist" to say a woman or person of color should be added to currency.

"Here's what's really happening, this is liberal activism on the part of the president, that's trying to identify people by categories and he's divided us on the lines of groups. … This is a divisive proposal on the part of the president and mine's unifying. It says just don't change anything."

Well, refusing to change anything is the definition of political conservatism alright, but I'm not sure what's more directly insulting, that King feels a famous civil rights leader who risked her life to help end slavery shouldn't be on the $20, or that the Treasury department honoring her is "divisive" in some way.

When your proposal is so transparently racist, sexist, and stupid that it can't even get out of your own party's House Rules Committee, you might want to re-examine your political stunt checklist, Steve.