The concepts for D.C.’s quarter submitted to the U.S. Mint include famous names, maps of the city, a flag and one common theme: Taxation Without Representation.
A committee of D.C. residents fixed on three ideas for the 25-cent piece, slated for circulation in 2009. The narratives, which will be transformed into designs by U.S. Mint artists, were submitted to Mint Director Edmund Moy on Monday.
The first is the D.C. flag with its three red stars and two red bars, though the Mint considers state flags or symbols not suitable for designs. The second is abolitionist Benjamin Banneker “dressed in the style of an 18th Century gentleman” and fronting a diamond shape outline of the original D.C. borders. And the third is jazz icon and D.C. native Duke Ellington, paired with an outline of the city’s current boundaries.
Of the three, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton immediately leaned toward Ellington, to “associate this government town with a modern universally recognized symbol,” she said.
Whatever the ultimate design, D.C. urged the Treasury Department to include “Taxation Without Representation” on the quarter. But that plan faces an uphill battle as the Mint considers controversial subjects inappropriate.
“People will very often tell me that’s a political statement,” said Stephanie Scott, secretary of the District and D.C.’s point person on the project. “I say, ‘No, it’s not a political issue. It’s a human-rights issue.’ ”
The motto is apolitical, nonpartisan and has become “an enduring representation of the District of Columbia,” Scott told U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in a recent memo. Norton’s comment on the motto: “You can’t blame us for trying.”
A U.S. Mint spokesman would not comment on the slogan.
The District and U.S. territories were omitted from the 50-state quarter program when it was launched in 1999. Language inserted in the 2008 budget bill brings D.C. on board, as well as Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Scott’s office received about 300 design and concept submissions in three weeks.
