Backers say Reagan’s bill is due

WASHINGTON — Ronald Reagan’s enthusiastic supporters say the late president deserves a place on the nation’s currency, even if it means a lesser or disappearing role for Franklin D. Roosevelt, Alexander Hamilton or Andrew Jackson.

Getting their hero’s face on the dime may be easier than other goals, such as seeing it etched on Mount Rushmore, but that idea still will be resisted by Democrats defending their own icon, FDR.

Honoring the late president with new coins or paper money is only one of several ideas being advanced by Reagan admirers: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has suggested legislation to rename the Pentagon the Ronald Reagan National Defense Building.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., a speechwriter in the Reagan White House, plans to introduce a bill to put Reagan on the $20 bill, replacing another venerable Democrat, Andrew Jackson.

That would join a previous proposal, by Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., to provide for dimes bearing the likeness of Reagan.

The office of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he would pursue an idea he has pushed for several years, placing Reagan on the $10 bill now bearing the visage of Hamilton, the first Treasury secretary.

Chris Butler of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, which has the goal of seeing a Reagan commemoration in every American county, said its top legislative priority is the $10 bill. He noted that money can be changed administratively without congressional action, and suggested that Reagan dimes could join, rather than replace, FDR dimes.

Replacing FDR would not happen without a battle. Last November, on the same day Souder introduced his Reagan dime bill “in honor of his work in restoring American greatness and bringing freedom to captive nations around the world,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., proposed a resolution affirming support of the FDR dime. More than half the House Democrats joined him as co-sponsors.

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Tuesday a decision on a $10 Reagan note should be left to historians, adding that “the best tribute we could pay to him” would be fully funding research into Alzheimer’s, the disease that afflicted Reagan the last decade of his life.

Reagan’s wife, Nancy, has also voiced opposition to the new dime. self end