WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Wednesday he's gotten more than a million responses to his request for comments on how U.S. currency should be redesigned and recommendations for what woman should become the first female on U.S. paper money in more than a century.
Lew said it has been a "remarkable outpouring" of everything from tweets and retweets to handwritten letters. He said among the "interesting commentary" are suggestions to replace some of the buildings now on the currency with more direct depictions of the democracy theme that will be used in the redesign.
Lew set off a furor in June by announcing a redesign of the $10 bill that would replace the portrait of Alexander Hamilton with a woman.
Lew said a decision is still expected "in the very near future." Lew said while a woman's portrait will be placed on the $10 bill, Hamilton will still be honored in some way.
"I have been very clear that it is about time that we have a woman reflected on our paper currency," Lew told reporters at a breakfast meeting sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
He said the redesign of the $10 bill will be just the first in a series of redesigns of the currency to make the U.S. bills safer against the newest forms of counterfeiting.
The aim is to make an announcement of what woman will go on the $10 billion by this fall with the total redesign completed by 2020, the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.
– by AP Reporter Martin Crutsinger
