The Harriet Tubman $20 Bill refers to a proposed redesign of the U.S. twenty‑dollar note that would put abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the front, moving President Andrew Jackson to the back or removing him entirely. It was announced by the Obama administration in 2016, delayed under Donald Trump’s first term, nominally revived under Joe Biden, and—in 2026—appears stalled again at the Treasury Department.

Why Is Everyone Talking About the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill?

People are searching “Harriet Tubman $20 Bill” because a 2016 promise to put Harriet Tubman on the twenty‑dollar bill by 2020 still hasn’t been fulfilled. Recent reporting shows the $20 redesign is scheduled for 2030, yet Treasury officials now say there are “no current plans” to feature Tubman, keeping the controversy alive.

Why the topic is trending

The idea of Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill captured the public imagination in 2015–2016, when the Women on 20s campaign and then‑Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the note. Tubman would have been the first Black woman on U.S. paper money and the first woman on a note in more than a century.

Interest surged again when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, serving under President Donald Trump’s first term, said in 2019 that the redesign would be delayed until at least 2028, citing a priority on anti‑counterfeiting security upgrades. The announcement sparked outrage from advocates who saw the delay as a political decision cloaked in technical language.

Under President Joe Biden, the White House said in early 2021 that the Treasury Department, now led by Janet Yellen, would “take steps to resume” efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the new $20 notes. Internal documents and an Inspector General report, however, showed that the formal banknote development schedule still placed the redesigned $20 in 2030, after new $10 and $50 notes.

By 2026, the story took another turn: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that “there are no current plans” to feature Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, even as the agency moves ahead with a broader “Catalyst” series redesign and plans to add Donald Trump’s portrait to a new $250 denomination. That disconnect between public promises and internal timelines is a key reason the Harriet Tubman twenty‑dollar bill remains headline news.

Who Was Harriet Tubman?

Harriet Tubman (c. 1822–1913) was born enslaved in Maryland, escaped to freedom, then risked her life repeatedly guiding others north on the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, she served the Union as a scout, spy, and nurse and later campaigned for women’s suffrage, becoming one of the most influential freedom fighters in American history.

Early life in slavery

According to the National Park Service and the National Archives, Harriet Tubman was born Araminta “Minty” Ross around March 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland, to enslaved parents Ben and Harriet (Rit) Ross. As a child she was hired out to other households, where she suffered brutal treatment and lifelong physical injury after being struck in the head by a heavy weight hurled by an overseer.

Historical records note that Tubman changed her name from Araminta to Harriet around 1844, after marrying John Tubman, a free Black man. When her enslaver Edward Brodess died in 1849 and she feared sale farther South, she escaped alone, traveling at night along networks of Black and white antislavery allies toward Philadelphia.

Escape and the Underground Railroad

Treasury documents and museum archives point out that Tubman did not stop at securing her own freedom. Over roughly a decade, she returned to Maryland about 13 times, personally leading some 70 enslaved people—including siblings and parents—to freedom and guiding at least 70 more through detailed instructions.

Because of her daring raids, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and others called her “Moses,” a nickname that appears repeatedly in contemporary accounts and later biographies. Tubman carefully studied the stars, local terrain, and secret communication networks among free and enslaved African Americans, skills she had developed while working in fields, forests, and on Chesapeake Bay wharves.

Civil War service

During the Civil War, Tubman shifted from clandestine rescuer to official agent of the Union Army. National Park Service records show that she served as a nurse, cook, scout, and spy in Union camps, particularly in South Carolina, where she treated Black soldiers and civilians.

Her most famous wartime mission, the Combahee River Raid of June 1863, saw Tubman collaborate with Colonel James Montgomery and Black troops of the 2nd South Carolina Infantry to free more than 700 enslaved people, many of whom later joined the Union forces. The raid damaged Confederate plantations and strengthened the Union both militarily and morally, underscoring Tubman’s role in the broader struggle that culminated in Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and, eventually, the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery.

Women’s suffrage and later years

After the war, Tubman settled in Auburn, New York, on land she had purchased from Secretary of State William Seward and later used to establish the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged. She became an outspoken advocate for women’s suffrage, working closely with leaders such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and Martha Coffin Wright and speaking at suffrage conventions in New York and beyond.

Library of Congress materials and suffrage archives show that Tubman saw women’s voting rights as the next stage of her lifelong fight for freedom and equality. She died in Auburn on March 10, 1913, and was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery, cementing her status as a national hero remembered today by institutions ranging from the National Park Service to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Why Was Harriet Tubman Chosen to Replace Andrew Jackson?

Harriet Tubman was chosen to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill after the grassroots Women on 20s campaign held an online vote and Tubman emerged as the top public choice. In 2016, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that Tubman would appear on the front of the redesigned twenty‑dollar note, reflecting a shift toward honoring women and civil rights history on U.S. currency.

Women on 20s and public voting

Women on 20s, a nonprofit campaign, launched an online vote in 2015 asking Americans which woman should appear on the twenty‑dollar bill. The group’s founders argued that Andrew Jackson—known for the Indian Removal Act and his role in the Trail of Tears—was a problematic symbol and that 2020, the centennial of women’s suffrage, was the right moment to honor a woman on the note.

Over 600,000 people participated, narrowing a list of 15 candidates that included Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Wilma Mankiller. Harriet Tubman won the final round with more than 118,000 votes, giving the campaign clear public backing for putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.

The Treasury decision

Jack Lew initially proposed putting a woman on the $10 bill, replacing Alexander Hamilton, but that plan changed amid public support for Hamilton following the hit musical of the same name. In April 2016, Lew announced instead that Harriet Tubman would appear on the front of the twenty‑dollar note, with Andrew Jackson’s portrait moved to the back alongside the White House.

Treasury statements from that period framed the decision as both symbolic and practical: symbolic in honoring an abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor whose story fits alongside the Emancipation Proclamation and Reconstruction, practical in that the $20 was already slated for redesign within a new security‑driven schedule.

Symbolic importance

Placing Harriet Tubman on the twenty‑dollar bill would represent several firsts: the first Black woman on U.S. paper money, the first woman on a widely‑circulated note in more than a century, and a move away from an exclusive focus on presidents as “faces” of American currency.

For many historians and activists, including those at the Smithsonian Institution and NMAAHC, Tubman’s image would connect the daily transaction of money with stories of resistance to slavery, the Underground Railroad, women’s suffrage, and the unfinished struggle for civil rights. Supporters also noted that Tubman’s life intersected with other iconic figures such as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Susan B. Anthony, making her a bridge between abolition and women’s rights.

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Harriet Tubman $20 Bill Timeline (1822–Present)

The Harriet Tubman $20 Bill timeline spans Harriet Tubman’s birth in 1822, her Underground Railroad work and Civil War service, the Women on 20s campaign in 2015, Jack Lew’s 2016 redesign announcement, delays under Steven Mnuchin, a partial revival under Janet Yellen, and recent signals from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that Tubman may not appear on the 2030 $20 redesign after all.

Chronological timeline with context

• 1822–1849 – Tubman’s early life and escape
  Harriet Tubman is born enslaved in Maryland around 1822, experiences severe abuse, and escapes in 1849 after the death of her enslaver, heading north via Underground Railroad routes.

• 1850s–1863 – Underground Railroad and Civil War
  Tubman makes some 13 trips back to Maryland, freeing around 70 people directly and guiding dozens more, then serves as a Civil War scout, spy, and nurse, helping lead the 1863 Combahee River Raid.

• 1865–1913 – Suffrage activism and legacy
  After the war, Tubman settles in Auburn, New York, promotes women’s suffrage, works with Susan B. Anthony, and runs the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged until her death in 1913.

• 1928 – Andrew Jackson on the $20
  Andrew Jackson’s portrait appears on the front of the U.S. twenty‑dollar bill for the first time, with the White House on the back, cementing his presence on American currency for generations.

• 1996–2003 – Modern $20 security redesigns
  The Series 1996 and 2003 twenty‑dollar notes introduce larger portraits, color‑shifting ink, security threads, watermarks, microprinting, and raised printing to combat counterfeiting. These features come from work by the Treasury Department, Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP), and Federal Reserve.

• 2015 – Women on 20s vote
  Women on 20s runs its online vote; Harriet Tubman wins as the public’s choice to replace Jackson on the $20 bill, and the group petitions the White House and Treasury.

• April 2016 – Jack Lew’s announcement
  Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announces that Harriet Tubman will appear on the front of the redesigned $20 note, with Jackson moved to the back, and suggests note designs could be revealed by 2020.

• 2017–2019 – Mnuchin delays redesign
  Under Donald Trump’s first term, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he will not commit to the Tubman redesign and announces that the $10 and $50 notes will be redesigned first for security reasons. In 2019, Mnuchin states the new $20 will not be issued until 2028 and that designs will not be unveiled until 2026.

• 2019–2020 – Inspector General investigation and ACD report
  NPR reports that the Treasury Inspector General opens an inquiry into the delay and whether political considerations affected the process. An Inspector General report later notes that Lew’s 2016 timeline was announced outside formal banknote governance and confirms a long‑standing plan for the $20 note to be redesigned around 2030.

• January 2021 – Biden administration “resumes efforts”
  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki says under President Joe Biden that the Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the new $20 notes.

• 2023–2025 – Legislative pushes for Tubman note
  Senator Jeanne Shaheen introduces a bill requiring all $20 Federal Reserve notes printed after December 31, 2030 to bear Tubman’s likeness, allowing only a two‑year delay for technical issues. A separate House bill, the “Woman on the Twenty Act,” seeks to require that no $20 note printed after December 31, 2026 be issued without Tubman on the front and that preliminary designs be released by late 2024.

• 2025 – “Catalyst” series schedule and 2030 target
  A 2025 report on the BEP’s Catalyst series confirms a production schedule: $10 note in 2026, $50 in 2028, $20 in 2030, followed by other denominations later in the decade.

• 2026 – Scott Bessent’s “no current plans” statement
  In 2026, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells reporters that there are “no current plans” to place Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, even as the broader redesign program advances and the department prepares a new $250 denomination featuring Donald Trump. That position suggests the Tubman note is no longer on the active redesign agenda, despite earlier public commitments.

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What Would the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill Look Like?

Mock‑ups of the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill show a front portrait of Tubman, often based on mid‑life photographs, with updated security features like color‑shifting ink, embedded security threads, watermarks, and microprinting. The proposed design would likely keep the green‑and‑tan palette and modern anti‑counterfeiting technology while replacing Andrew Jackson’s central image with Tubman.

Biden Administration Wants Harriet Tubman on $20 Bill

Portrait and proposed design

The Treasury Department has never released an official final design for the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill, but unofficial mock‑ups circulated by news outlets and advocates draw from mid‑19th‑century portraits held by the Library of Congress and museum collections. These images show Tubman wearing a headscarf and plain dress, conveying the steady resolve that defined her work on the Underground Railroad.

Jack Lew’s 2016 announcement indicated that Tubman’s portrait would appear on the front of the note, while Andrew Jackson would either be moved to the back or reduced to a secondary image alongside the White House. Women on 20s and other advocates pressed for a design that positioned Tubman as the central figure, not merely an add‑on to existing iconography.

Security features and anti‑counterfeiting technology

Treasury documents and the $20 bill’s current specifications show that modern notes use a suite of security features: security fibers in the paper, an embedded security thread, watermarks, color‑shifting ink on numerals, microprinting along borders, raised printing, and the EURion constellation pattern that helps machine readers detect currency.

The BEP’s Catalyst series development process emphasizes integrating new security features into designs from the start, so any Harriet Tubman twenty‑dollar bill would be engineered around advanced anti‑counterfeiting technology. That might include improved security threads that glow under specific wavelengths of light, more complex color‑shifting inks, and enhanced microprinting that becomes harder to reproduce digitally.

Comparison with the current $20 bill

Today’s $20 note features Andrew Jackson’s portrait slightly off‑center on the front and a view of the White House on the back, with green and peach colors and the security features introduced in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Tubman’s image would likely occupy similar visual real estate, though advocates have argued for more contextual imagery—such as subtle references to the Underground Railroad or the Combahee River Raid—in the background.

For editors at Gadfly City, a useful image placement here would be a side‑by‑side comparison of the current Andrew Jackson note and a Tubman mock‑up, with alt text such as: “Current Andrew Jackson $20 bill next to proposed Harriet Tubman $20 Bill design featuring Tubman’s portrait and updated security features.”

Why Is Andrew Jackson Still on the $20 Bill?

Andrew Jackson remains on the $20 bill because the formal currency redesign schedule prioritizes security upgrades and places the twenty‑dollar note’s next redesign around 2030, while political changes at the Treasury have stalled the Tubman plan. Jackson’s controversial legacy—including the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears—has not yet overcome institutional inertia in currency design.

Jackson’s presidency and the Indian Removal Act

Andrew Jackson, the seventh U.S. president, served from 1829 to 1837 and is known both for expanding white male democracy and for championing Indian removal policies that led to the forced displacement and mass death of Native peoples. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 paved the way for the Trail of Tears, in which thousands of Cherokee and other Indigenous people were marched west under brutal conditions.

Historians and Native advocates have long argued that honoring Jackson on paper money implicitly celebrates policies that treated Indigenous communities as obstacles to land speculation and white settlement. That critique intensified as movements for racial justice and Indigenous rights drew parallels between Jackson’s era and modern struggles over land, policing, and citizenship.

Why opinions differ

Supporters of keeping Jackson on the $20 bill often argue that currency portraits should reflect long‑standing presidential figures and that revising notes for political reasons sets a troubling precedent. They point to Jackson’s role in shaping early American politics and his image as a symbol of populist resistance to elite power, even as they acknowledge his policies toward Native nations.

Critics counter that U.S. currency has always been a political statement, citing previous changes that added or removed presidents and allegorical figures and that modern notes should better reflect the diversity of people who fought for freedom, from Harriet Tubman to Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, and Sacagawea. The Harriet Tubman redesign thus sits at the intersection of debates about history, representation, and what it means to be honored on American currency.

How the U.S. Treasury Redesigns Currency

U.S. currency redesign is led by the Treasury Department, working through the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the Federal Reserve, with oversight from the Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence Steering Committee. The process involves years of research, technology development, security testing, and design integration before a new note is revealed only months before issuance.

Treasury, BEP, and the Federal Reserve

The U.S. Treasury is responsible for overall currency policy, while the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) designs and prints paper notes and the Federal Reserve issues them into circulation. BEP’s strategic plans highlight its dual mission: making secure, high‑quality banknotes and innovating anti‑counterfeiting technology as counterfeiters adopt advanced printing and digital tools.

The Federal Reserve, working with the Secret Service and other agencies, monitors counterfeiting trends and usage patterns across denominations to determine which notes most urgently need redesign. Its decisions influence the sequence of the Catalyst series, which treats the $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 notes as a “family” to be redesigned collectively with shared architecture.

Banknote security testing and approval

According to Inspector General reports and BEP documentation, banknote development follows a structured process: a Banknote Development Process to integrate new security features and design concepts, and a Technology Development Process to mature specific technologies before they are embedded in notes.

Security features—from microprinting and security threads to color‑shifting ink and watermarks—are tested for durability, machine readability, and resistance to known counterfeiting techniques. Only after extensive trials and coordination with cash‑handling industries, like ATMs and vending equipment, does Treasury approve a final design.

Why redesign takes a decade

BEP officials have stated that redesigning a note can take close to a decade from concept to circulation, particularly for heavily used denominations like the $20 bill. The schedule for the Catalyst series shows production starting with the $10 in 2026, the $50 in 2028, and the $20 in 2030, reflecting both security priorities and the need to phase in new technology.

Designs are typically revealed only about six months before issuance, partly to prevent counterfeiters from having years to prepare and partly to allow for public education on new security features. That timing helps explain why, despite multiple public statements about Harriet Tubman on the $20, no official Tubman note artwork has appeared from Treasury or BEP.

Why Has the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill Been Delayed?

The Harriet Tubman $20 Bill has been delayed because the formal security‑driven redesign schedule puts the twenty‑dollar note in 2030, while successive administrations have shifted priorities, leaving Tubman’s portrait in limbo. Treasury officials cite anti‑counterfeiting needs, but investigations and recent statements suggest political and administrative changes have also shaped the delays.

Administrative changes and shifting priorities

Under Barack Obama, Jack Lew publicly embraced the Tubman redesign and suggested concept art might be unveiled by 2020. Under Donald Trump’s first term, Steven Mnuchin emphasized security concerns, refused to commit to Tubman, and repeatedly pushed the timetable back to align with the pre‑existing redesign sequence.

During Joe Biden’s administration, the White House signaled that efforts would be “resumed,” but internal Treasury schedules still placed the $20 note’s next major redesign around 2030, after the $10 and $50 notes. As of 2026, under Donald Trump’s second term and Scott Bessent’s leadership at Treasury, officials now say there are no current plans to feature Tubman, effectively freezing the Harriet Tubman redesign.

Security priorities and ACD guidance

The Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence Steering Committee (ACD) guides which denominations are redesigned first based on counterfeiting risk. A 2025 report notes that since 2013, the $10 note has typically led redesign sequences, with occasional shifts between the $5 and $50 as threats evolve.

The Inspector General’s review concluded that Lew’s 2016 public promise to reveal designs in 2020 did not reflect the internal governance structure and that the ACD never intended the Catalyst series designs to appear that early. In this view, the Tubman timeline was always optimistic and disconnected from the technical reality of banknote development.

Treasury statements and investigations

Mnuchin told Congress that the delay was “nonpolitical” and driven by security issues, but legislators like Senator Chuck Schumer requested investigations into whether the redesign had been slowed for political reasons. The Inspector General’s review folded the Tubman question into a broader look at BEP project management, interviewing officials from Treasury, BEP, the Federal Reserve, the Secret Service, and the White House.

Recent coverage quoting Scott Bessent’s “no current plans” remark further suggests that the Harriet Tubman twenty‑dollar bill is now a discretionary choice rather than a guaranteed outcome of the Catalyst schedule. In other words, the delay is both technical and political, with different administrations interpreting the redesign’s symbolism and timing in very different ways.

Public Opinion

Public opinion on the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill is broadly favorable to putting Harriet Tubman on the twenty‑dollar note but divided over removing Andrew Jackson and over whether currency should be used to make political statements. Polls, campaigns, and legislative efforts show strong support for Tubman, while some critics worry about “politicizing” money.

Support for Harriet Tubman on the $20

The Women on 20s vote, with over 600,000 participants, showed strong grassroots support for Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, beating out other icons like Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt. Lawmakers from both parties have introduced bills that would mandate a Tubman note by specific dates, reflecting that public pressure has reached Congress.

Cultural commentators at outlets like The New Yorker and public historians at the Smithsonian argue that featuring Tubman would highlight stories of resistance and make everyday transactions a reminder of America’s struggle against slavery and racism. For many Americans, seeing Harriet Tubman on the twenty‑dollar bill would validate the importance of abolitionists and Black women in national memory.

Concerns and criticism

Critics worry that replacing Andrew Jackson could trigger partisan disputes over which historical figures “deserve” to be on money and that frequent changes might undermine the perceived neutrality of currency. Some conservative commentators, including Donald Trump during his first presidential campaign, called the Tubman proposal “pure political correctness” and suggested honoring her on a different denomination or leaving Jackson untouched.

Others question whether symbolically changing currency without broader structural reforms—such as addressing racial wealth gaps, banking discrimination, or unequal access to credit—risks turning Harriet Tubman into a decorative figure rather than honoring her radical challenge to slavery and inequality. Nevertheless, these critics often still recognize Tubman’s heroism; they disagree mainly on how and where she should be commemorated.

Myths vs. Facts

The Harriet Tubman $20 Bill has generated several myths, including the belief that Tubman is already on the twenty‑dollar bill and that the redesign was canceled outright. In fact, Andrew Jackson remains on the note, the formal redesign is planned for 2030, and whether Tubman will appear depends on future Treasury decisions and legislation.

Common misconceptions

Myth about the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill: Harriet Tubman is already on the $20 bill.

Fact: Andrew Jackson still appears on the current twenty‑dollar bill; no Harriet Tubman note has entered circulation.

Myth about the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill: The redesign was guaranteed for 2020 and then canceled.

Fact: Jack Lew proposed unveiling designs by 2020, but internal governance always placed the $20 redesign later; the plan was delayed, not formally canceled, then effectively sidelined.

Myth about the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill: Security features were invented just to block Tubman.

Fact: Anti‑counterfeiting priorities long pre‑date the Tubman debate; Catalyst series security upgrades would have been necessary regardless of who appeared on the $20.

Myth about the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill: Congress has no role in currency portraits.

Fact: While Treasury leads design choices, Congress can pass laws directing portrait changes, as proposed in the Woman on the Twenty Act and Senator Shaheen’s bill.

Myth about the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill: Putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill erases Andrew Jackson from history.

Fact: Critics of Jackson’s policies argue that textbooks and museums still document his legacy; removing him from the note changes symbolic representation, not historical records.

Myth about the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill: Only presidents can appear on U.S. money.

Fact: U.S. coins have featured women like Susan B. Anthony, Sacagawea, and Maya Angelou, and historical figures on paper money have included non‑presidents in the past.

Myth about the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill: The redesign would be simple and quick.

Fact: BEP and Treasury say it takes close to a decade to research, test, and finalize a new banknote, especially popular denominations like the $20.

How This Redesign Compares With Other U.S. Currency Changes

The Harriet Tubman $20 Bill proposal fits into a long history of U.S. currency redesigns driven by both security and symbolism, from anti‑counterfeiting overhauls in the 1990s to new portraits and themes on coins like the Susan B. Anthony dollar, Sacagawea dollar, and American Women Quarters.

Previous note redesigns

The twentieth century saw multiple redesigns of U.S. paper money, including shifts in portraits, sizes, and colors for notes such as the $10, $20, and $100. The Series 1996 and 2004 redesigns, for example, added color backgrounds, larger off‑center portraits, and advanced security features that responded to digital printing and high‑resolution scanning.

These changes often sparked commentary but rarely centered on whose face appeared; the Harriet Tubman twenty‑dollar bill is unusual because the portrait itself became the main public issue, rather than the security features around it.

Coins and symbolic redesigns

Coins have long served as platforms for symbolic change. The Susan B. Anthony dollar, issued from 1979 to 1981 and again in 1999, was the first circulating U.S. coin to feature a non‑mythical woman, honoring a leader of the women’s suffrage movement. The Sacagawea dollar followed in 2000 with a golden color and a portrait of Sacagawea carrying her child, based on a modern Shoshone‑Bannock woman Randy’L He‑dow Teton.

More recently, the American Women Quarters program introduced designs featuring Maya Angelou, Sally Ride, Wilma Mankiller, and other women, marking a deliberate effort by the U.S. Mint to diversify numismatic imagery. Seen in this context, Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill would extend a broader trend of lifting women’s stories onto everyday currency.

Women Featured on U.S. Coins and Proposed U.S. Currency

Women already appear on U.S. coins—including Susan B. Anthony on the dollar, Sacagawea on the Native American dollar, and Maya Angelou on a quarter—while Harriet Tubman remains a proposed figure for the $20 bill. These designs reflect growing recognition of women’s roles in American history and suffrage movements.

Existing coins with women

The Susan B. Anthony dollar honored the famed suffrage leader and was the first circulating coin to feature a real woman’s portrait on the obverse. The Sacagawea “golden dollar” followed, showing Sacagawea with her infant son, commemorating her crucial role in guiding the Lewis and Clark expedition.

In 2022, the U.S. Mint debuted the Maya Angelou quarter as the first coin in the American Women Quarters program, making Angelou the first Black woman on a U.S. quarter. Additional quarters in this series celebrate women from Native American leaders to astronauts and civil rights activists.

Proposed notes and broader representation

Beyond Harriet Tubman, advocates have floated figures such as Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Eleanor Roosevelt for future notes and coins, arguing that American currency should better reflect the nation’s diversity and social movements. Legislative ideas range from rotating portraits to thematic series, similar to the State Quarters or American Women Quarters programs.

For Gadfly City’s editors, an internal link to a piece like “Women on U.S. Currency” would naturally complement this section, as would links to feature stories about Sacagawea, Susan B. Anthony, and Maya Angelou.

Frequently Asked Questions

These FAQ answers on the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill summarize the redesign timeline, political debate, and technical process behind putting Harriet Tubman on the twenty‑dollar note. Each response is concise—under 75 words—and suitable for FAQPage schema to help search engines surface authoritative information about the Harriet Tubman redesign.

Is Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill yet?

No. Andrew Jackson still appears on the current $20 bill, and no Harriet Tubman twenty‑dollar bill has entered circulation.

When was the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill first announced?

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced in April 2016 that Harriet Tubman would appear on the front of the redesigned $20 note, moving Andrew Jackson to the back.

Why did the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill get delayed?

Treasury officials cited security priorities and a long‑standing redesign schedule that puts the $20 note’s next overhaul around 2030, while political changes also shifted focus away from the Tubman plan.

Who decides whose face goes on U.S. paper money?

The Treasury Department, through the Secretary of the Treasury, makes final decisions on portraits, with input from the BEP, Federal Reserve, and advisory bodies, and Congress can direct changes through legislation.

Will Harriet Tubman definitely be on the future $20 bill?

As of 2026, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says there are “no current plans” to put Harriet Tubman on the $20, meaning her appearance depends on future policy and laws.

What security features would be on a Harriet Tubman $20 Bill?

Any future Harriet Tubman twenty‑dollar bill would include modern security features such as color‑shifting ink, security threads, watermarks, microprinting, and raised printing like current high‑denomination notes.

How does the Harriet Tubman redesign relate to women’s suffrage?

The original goal was to introduce the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill around 2020, the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, connecting Tubman’s activism to women’s suffrage history.

Did Donald Trump oppose the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill?

During his first campaign, Donald Trump criticized replacing Jackson with Tubman as “political correctness,” and his administration’s Treasury delayed the redesign until at least 2028.

What role did Joe Biden’s administration play in the redesign?

Under Joe Biden, the White House said it would “resume efforts” to put Harriet Tubman on the $20, but internal schedules still targeted 2030 for the $20 redesign and did not guarantee Tubman.

What is the Woman on the Twenty Act?

A House bill introduced in the 118th Congress that would require all $20 notes printed after December 31, 2026 to feature Harriet Tubman and mandate a preliminary design by December 31, 2024.

How does the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill compare to women on coins?

Unlike coins that already feature women—like Susan B. Anthony, Sacagawea, and Maya Angelou—the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill remains proposed but unrealized, highlighting slower change on paper notes.

What is the Underground Railroad’s connection to the $20 redesign?

Harriet Tubman’s work on the Underground Railroad, guiding people from slavery to freedom, is central to why advocates want her on the $20 bill as a symbol of resistance and liberation.

What the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill Says About America Today

The unresolved fate of the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill reveals how American currency sits at the crossroads of history, politics, and technology. It shows a nation wrestling with how to represent abolition, Indigenous dispossession, and women’s rights on its money while balancing anti‑counterfeiting priorities and partisan disagreements.

Currency as a mirror of history

Treasury documents, museum archives, and suffrage records all point to Harriet Tubman as a figure whose life touched nearly every major story in nineteenth‑century American history: slavery, the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, emancipation, and women’s suffrage. Placing her on the twenty‑dollar bill would signal that those struggles are central to the national narrative, not footnotes.

At the same time, keeping Andrew Jackson on the $20 highlights enduring ambivalence about confronting the Indian Removal Act, the Trail of Tears, and a legacy built on land acquisition at the expense of Native nations. The Harriet Tubman redesign thus forces Americans to weigh which stories they want in their wallets: conquest and expansion, or resistance and liberation.

Technology, power, and representation

The Harriet Tubman $20 Bill debate also shows how technical systems—like banknote security schedules and the ACD’s threat assessments—can either support or stall symbolic change. Anti‑counterfeiting priorities are real and serious, yet the same processes can be invoked to delay portrait shifts, illustrating how bureaucratic structures intersect with political choices.

For editors at Gadfly City, internal links to explainer pieces such as “History of the U.S. $20 Bill,” “How U.S. Currency Is Designed,” “Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad,” “Andrew Jackson’s Legacy,” “Bureau of Engraving and Printing Explained,” and “U.S. Currency Security Features” would help readers follow those threads more deeply.

The unfinished story of the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill

Right now, the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill is less a piece of paper than a contested symbol of who America chooses to honor and how quickly institutions adapt to changing understandings of history. The fact that Harriet Tubman is celebrated in national parks, museums, and suffrage archives, yet not on the twenty‑dollar bill, underscores the gap between rhetorical recognition and structural change.

Whether future administrations and Congress ultimately put Harriet Tubman on the $20 or leave Jackson in place, the debate itself has taught millions of people to ask new questions about their money: whose stories are missing, whose are centered, and what it would mean—for abolitionists, for Indigenous communities, for women’s rights advocates—if every transaction carried the face of someone who fought for freedom rather than for exclusion. That, more than anything, is why the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill continues to matter.

But it shouldn’t. Jackman has been doing this for years. We’ve just been looking in the wrong direction.

Consider Song Sung Blue (2025), Craig Brewer’s utterly disarming film about Mike and Claire Sardina, a real-life Wisconsin couple who built their lives and their marriage around a Neil Diamond tribute act called Lightning & Thunder. Jackman plays Mike—not a dreamer, exactly, but a man of fierce, almost reckless conviction. He believes in the music, in Claire, in the singular dignity of doing something well even when the world has decided it doesn’t count. That’s not delusion. It’s determination, and there’s a difference the size of Lake Michigan between the two.

Kate Hudson, playing Claire, earned every one of her Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Actor Award nominations. She’s luminous in the role, and the recognition is deserved. But here’s the thing: Jackman is right there, matching her beat for beat, scene for scene, note for note, and the awards conversation sailed past him without pausing. It’s one of the more baffling oversights of the 2026 awards season. Hudson’s performance couldn’t exist without his, and his performance is doing some genuinely subtle, interior work that doesn’t announce itself the way Oscar clips tend to. Mike Sardina doesn’t have a breakdown scene or a triumphant monologue. He just keeps showing up, which turns out to be its own kind of heartbreak.

This is the Jackman I keep coming back to: the one who does the structural work while the showier performance gets the flowers.

The first time I interviewed Hugh Jackman, it was for The Prestige (2006). The Prestige is Christopher Nolan’s sleight-of-hand psychological thriller about two rival Victorian-era magicians who destroy each other in increasingly baroque ways. I came in expecting the person I’d seen in X-Men: warm, funny, effortlessly magnetic. What I got was someone who had clearly spent considerable time thinking about Robert Angier, Jackman’s character, as a study in the corrosive machinery of obsession. Angier is the outsider—not the more technically gifted magician, but the one who wants it more, who will sacrifice anything, including his own humanity, to win a competition the audience doesn’t even fully understand. He’s not the hero. Hell, he’s barely the antihero. He is, in Nolan’s precise moral universe, a cautionary tale wrapped in a top hat.

And Jackman plays him with a kind of controlled ferocity that Wolverine’s berserker rage actually obscures rather than reveals. This is colder, more architectural. Angier knows exactly what he’s doing. That’s what makes it so unsettling, and so enthralling. The outsider who refuses to accept that the rules apply to him, who bends reality to his will and pays the price: that’s a Gadfly City story if I’ve ever heard one.

Here’s the ask: before you see The Death of Robin Hood, go find Song Sung Blue on streaming and pull up The Prestige while you’re at it. You’ll meet a Hugh Jackman who has been hiding in plain sight, doing the most interesting work of his career in the films that don’t come with action figures.

There’s more to this man than adamantium claws, and there always has been.

This week, Lizabeth Yandel and Sebastian Pigott take a deep dive into the indie crime drama The Baker, starring Harvey Keitel and Ron Perlman. The pair discuss the film’s biggest strengths, its challenges, and how it compares to other independent films released over the past five years.

They also explore how The Baker fits within the work of Canadian screenwriter Paolo Mancini, what makes the film unique, and where it lands in the modern indie filmmaking landscape.

Join two indie filmmakers for a lively conversation about storytelling, performance, and the realities of independent cinema.

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Feminism is often misinterpreted as being dismissive of marriage and family. The feminists I know often discuss the joys and complications of motherhood, which are unmatched by anything else, including careers. At the same time, the left doesn’t often see acolytes of Turning Point USA and others like them as leaders. However, Katie Gaddini’s new book, Esther’s Army, finds that these women are organized and strongly influence our elections. In fact, young women’s votes for Trump jumped seven percentage points, to 40%, in 2024 compared to 2020.

One of the darlings of the women’s conservative and MAHA movement is Alex Clark, who hosts a Turning Point USA podcast, Culture Apothecary. But as an unmarried woman in her thirties, she’s been plagued by accusations of hypocrisy for putting her career first. What does a person in her position do? She leans into her singleness by giving a speech entitled “Stewarding Your Season of Singleness,” telling all the single women in the audience that she understands they are not building a career instead of a family: “you’re building a career because what the heck else are you supposed to be doing in the meantime?”

This reminded me of a woman I met in my first job after college. We were both in our early twenties, but she was a member of the Mormon church, working part-time while attending law school. She told me she wasn’t planning to practice law because she wanted to have a big family and stay home with her children. I was baffled. Why would someone go to law school for no reason? But this isn’t a far-fetched practice in conservative circles – it’s a modern spin on the MRS Degree coined in the 1950s.

Clark advised women not to waste “years waiting for your life to begin,” and instead trust God and build a beautiful life, serve other people, and become the kind of person someone wants to marry – travel, learn new things, laugh with your friends. While some of this might actually sound vaguely feminist, Clark followed it immediately with an engagement announcement. I suppose the implication is that she is now someone who can be trusted to give this advice, having achieved the goal of marriage, but something about it also made me feel sorry for all the women in the room who identified with her as someone who also had a hard time finding a mate. It was as if she’d pulled the rug out from under them. Her fiancée joined her on stage while Clark showed her ring off to her audience, asking them, “how did he do?” They walked off to Taylor Swift’s Wi$h Li$t.

One of the things that stood out to me from Clark’s speech was her claim that feminism tells women that careers should be our entire identity. I consider myself fairly well-versed in feminist politics and culture, and I would never say that a career must be the center of a progressive woman’s life. On the contrary, the overarching theme of feminism is that the woman gets to choose how she lives her life. For some women, that might mean their career is the most important thing. For others, it might be family, a partner, pets, travel, or some combination of those things.

Aside from Clark’s engagement announcement, the other big news was social media tradwife influencer Savanna Stone sharing her disappointment in Trump. But what interests me more is her willingness to give up her vote in favor of a “more conservative country.” Since too many women vote for liberal policies, she reasons, the only solution to create the political future she wants is to take the vote away from those pesky liberal women. While CBC News made it clear that the idea of a “head of household” (i.e. male) vote was a distinctly fringe idea at the Summit, the privilege underlying it is rampant.

The Summit speakers have massive followings on social media and big paychecks to support a lavish lifestyle and sprawling family. For most people, being a wife and mother does not also mean fame and fortune. And for a lot of mothers, giving up a career, or at least a job, is simply not an option. These are privileged women who, I assume, don’t have abusive husbands or live in desperate situations, have plenty of money, and whose “power” is given to them by men only because they are evangelizing a lifestyle that is simply not accessible to every woman at the Summit, let alone the United States. Stone is twenty-one years old. I think it’s highly likely she changes her mind about a few things in the years to come. And if she does, she’ll have the money she needs to finance a new life. What about the others she’s convinced to follow in her footsteps, but without the safety net of influencer income?

I don’t espouse any of the ideas listed on the Turning Point USA Women’s Leadership Summit website. I cringe at the young women who attended and said the only measure of success in their lives is getting married and having babies. But they can do whatever they like. That’s feminism. I just wish more of them could see that many of these speakers are selling a pyramid scheme, and that personal religious values should never dictate the policies all Americans live by.

Julia Cumming’s debut solo album, Julia, feels like a direct rebuke to that trend. It and she really give a fuck. And that is why this album has made it into the Gadfly series.

The funny thing is when I listened to the first track, I almost immediately thought ‘nope, not for me’... but then I kept listening. Something about it was so unique, I had to keep listening. Here’s Julia Cumming performing that first track, “My Life”, on The Tonight Show:

Her voice itself is a throwback– a mix of Karen Carpenter, Julie Andrews, and Joni Mitchell– of course, with her own unique flavor shaping it all. In that first track, “My Life”, her voice is decorated with airy strings, equally airy backing vocals, bells, and a rhythm section (bass, drums, piano) that sounds like it was recorded live off the floor.

It is all absolutely in service of her voice, though, and the song serves as a thesis statement for the album: something along the lines of “I didn’t make this album to impress you, it’s not about you at all, really, it’s for me. It’s my sound, and I’ll do what I want to”.

But, the song that hooked me, the one that made me keep listening, was track #2- “Revel in the Knowledge”. It starts with some interestingly voiced chords on a pulsing 70’s-style synth keyboard, rhythmic backing vocals that sound a bit like a small women’s church choir, and a super fun, busy bassline played by Cumming’s primary collaborator on the album, Brian Robert Jones (Vampire Weekend).

The chorus on that fairly strange, seemingly not hooky song, is a great hook. It’s a relief to get into the chorus, which I always love; there is a release there in the chord progression. The tempo moves into halftime, another excellent choice if I do say so. And the lyrics are intelligent, philosophical, and yet, somehow, still catchy: “Revel in the knowledge, one cannot be perceived. You’re born alone, you die alone; there’s so much in between”.

For me, this is the best song on the album, but I’ll link it here so you can decide for yourself:

The next track, “Hollywood Communication”, might be the most fun song on the album. It’s a little beachy, a little 70s yacht rocky, a little Minnie Riperton, very easy to bop to. I’d call it a great driving song. Again, the lyrics are smart and unpredictable.

“Please Let Me Remember This”, which has a fun little music video (linked below), was directly inspired by Brian Wilson’s tune “Busy Doin’ Nothing”. If you’re not familiar, Brian Wilson was the brain behind The Beach Boy’s sneakily sophisticated song structures and incredible layered harmonies. Dude was a genius, really, and Julia has noted him as a major influence for her work. I can hear that throughout the album, and especially on this track.

“I could live my life loving and failing all 8 billion people, but there’s only one you” is the standout line, for me, on the next track “Emotional Labor”. It’s a downtempo, contemplative track. Not usually my cup of tea, but the lyrics are so solid and she’s hidden so many catchy little melodies throughout that I’ve been wooed.

Speaking of solid lyrics, the next song, “Ruled by Fear”, is my vote for the best lyrics on the album (subject to change, there are so many lyrics to admire on this one).

“My mama told me once, you don’t use your gifts, you lose ‘em.

Why do I wait around for people to abuse ‘em?

Do I trust their judgement more than mine?

Sense of self, hard to define,

What if I look too hard and finally find there’s really nothing there?

Ruled by fear,

A prisoner in my own mind if I stay right here

I’ll never fail if I never try.

I find new ways to waste a year or maybe several

Just thinking about the day my dreams are on the schedule

But wishing only passes time

I stay brilliant in my mind

What if I look too close and finally find I’m just too scared to try?

Maybe it’s just me, but there are few song lyrics I’ve related to more.

“Fucking Closure” is more guitar-driven that the other tracks; it has a bit of an early 2000s break up song feel and I don’t mind that. But, I think the best part of this song is the doubling of the bass line and vocal melody at the end of each verse phrase. Without this, the song might get too repetitive, but it’s able to refresh the palate each time. Again, the composition is smart, thoughtful, and polished. This track also has a little music video for your viewing pleasure:

Cumming seems to have built the next song around its central, highly evocative image which she states explicitly in the title: “I Dream of a Fire that Stays Burning When Nobody Tends it”.

The next song, now that I listen again, might actually be my favorite.

“Do It All Again” is such an incredible mashup of sounds. The verses feature samba guitar and hand percussion, with light, spacey keys. Then the chorus keeps the samba elements but adds this distorted, heavy electric rhythm guitar with a floating 70’s lead guitar over it. The composition is remarkably unique. All of this seemingly disparate instrumentation cradles her airy-yet-powerful soprano voice so well.

We move back into a boppy little ballad in the penultimate “Sounds of a Secret”. Lovely harmonies, lots of studio piano, a bigger, layered chorus. The final track, “Forget the Rest”, is another banger for lyrics. The verse lyrics are dense and specific, which works because the chorus is easy, repetitive, and catchy:

“I love you, forget the rest”, she sings again and again. A love song to herself, I believe, and the perfect way to round out the album and bring it back to her initial “thesis statement” track.

At this point in music history, I am very happy to see us moving away from hyper-controlled recordings: with super auto-tuned vocals, perfectly quantized drums, no note out of place. It isn’t human, and it’s made for a lot of sterile music. But I don’t think the reaction to this needs to be just not giving a shit.

Quite to the contrary, it’s the caring that is human, it’s the soul that spills over in a vocal that’s pushed out of tune by passion that I want.

I’m often a fan of a “rough” sound, the rawness of lo-fi; there are great albums with that aesthetic. But, they’re great because they were intentionally made with that aesthetic, not because the artist didn’t care enough to polish it up. If thoughtful, carefully crafted music is suspect, if “caring is creepy”, my friends… we have a problem.

Thankfully, Julia Cumming is out there caring “too much” and being “too much” and that is exactly what we need our artists to be doing, frankly. Dare to care, kids!

Go listen to Julia, it’s an experience. Also, just because I think it’s excellent, here is a video of the song “Champagne Taste” from Julia’s other project Sunflower Bean.

In this episode of Gadfly City Presents, contributor Monica Cardenas sits down with Dr. Meg Davis, professor at the University of Warwick Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, to explore the intersection of technology, digital health, human rights, and gender justice.

The conversation examines the Digital Health and Rights Project, the opportunities and challenges created by digital technologies, and what it means to protect rights and promote equality in an increasingly connected world.

Whether you’re interested in technology, public health, human rights, or social justice, this is a timely discussion about the future of the digital society we’re building.

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In an era where cartoonish corporate villains have sprung to life across technology, healthcare, Wall Street and beyond, this tale presents an ordinary man walking the halls of a fictional company run by such a tycoon and creating a little mischief along the way. The eponymous character is a lifestyle columnist and this first volume involves his coverage of a corrupt pharmaceutical company. Follow him as he breaks bad, for good, after the outbreak of a new virus called the Sillies in The Goofy Traveler and the Silly Escapade.

If you like it, please share and invite people to come to Gadfly City. All are welcome!

HERE’S ONE FOR YOUTUBE-

Think you know about Midwest USA history trivia?

Join Arcade Gadfly, the weekly trivia game show from Gadfly City, as we test your knowledge about the weird and rebel history of the Midwest United States — including culture, people, places, and events.

Tonight’s game features:

4 rounds

5 questions each

Increasing point values

Trivia designed to challenge even the smartest Flies

From civil rights and labor movements to music and political activism, this episode celebrates the rebels who changed American history.

Live tonight at 9 PM EST — fly in and see how well you stack up!

For instructions and answer sheets:
https://www.gadflycity.com/p/weird-midwest-trivia-game-show

Follow Gadfly City for more shows and community at gadflycity.com, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Fly back soon!

ARCADE GADFLY TRIVIA GAME SHOW TONIGHT

Join us tonight at 9 PM EST for Arcade Gadfly, our weekly trivia game featuring WEIRD MIDWEST TRIVIA. Learn about the weird and rebel history of the American Midwest. The game has four rounds of five questions each with increasing point values. They are designed to test even the smartest Flies among you. Fly in and see how well you stack up!

Here are the instructions:

· There are 4 rounds of 5 questions each, must play all 4 rounds for scores to count.

· Each round has its own Google form answer sheet to fill out and submit.

· Have Google form answer sheets open on one screen and game screen open on another screen.

· You can only submit one Google form answer sheet per round.

· Honor system-no looking up answers.

· All-time points leaderboard on Discord, subscribe to see.

· Winner gets an Amazon gift card.

· Email info@gadflycity.com with any questions.

Here are the four Google form answer sheets to use (note: they can also be found on our Discord along with the community chat included with premium subscription):

Round 1 Answer Sheet

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfW3MIkP8XtorgWFXyYuPzvpN-4Ycp7SZlLcpySEsIk8azQtw/viewform?usp=publish-editor

Round 2 Answer Sheet

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfJD_hZd6EsO3nDNov1dREkgXo77gQA4YUwoSXxL7_UoEfJwA/viewform?usp=publish-editor

Round 3 Answer Sheet

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfTyJTaqXCbsE5mtQ4wegZLUogPALdPPOzntOIfM_p6zMYQJA/viewform?usp=publish-editor

Round 4 Answer Sheet

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScXFkggavDnAthss_aqosEt2GBZ1LxPfT_w4Z-CQ1SxePqWZw/viewform?usp=publish-editor

Hope you fly by and have some fun!

There’s a certain kind of film that arrives in theaters like a party nobody knew was happening, and by the time word gets around, it’s already over. Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto (2005) was that kind of movie. Based on Patrick McCabe’s darkly whimsical 1998 novel, it floated into multiplexes trailing glitter and heartbreak in equal measures, collected a couple of Golden Globe nominations like corsages at prom, and then politely disappeared into the long tail of streaming obscurity. Twenty-one years later, it’s time to track it down, pour it a drink, and give it the audience it always deserved.

If you’ve never seen it, here’s the essential geography: Patrick “Kitten” Braden (Cillian Murphy) is an Irish foundling. He was an infant abandoned on a doorstep and raised by a cold foster mother. Now gender-bended, she’s convinced her birth mother fled to London, looks exactly like Mitzi Gaynor, and would be thrilled to know him. The Mitzi Gaynor detail tells you everything you need to know about Kitten. Only a person wired in a very specific and wonderful way would anchor their deepest longing to a Hollywood musical star. The journey to find Mother carries Kitten through the Irish Troubles, a glam rock band, a London magic act, the city’s sex trade, and a wrongful detention during the IRA’s bombing campaigns. Along the way, Kitten is propositioned, threatened, arrested, and degraded, yet somehow emerges from every encounter with her sense of self not just intact, but polished.

That’s the movie. Or rather, that’s the shape of the movie. What the movie actually is is something more elusive and harder to categorize.

Neil Jordan and the Art of the Beautiful Misfit

Director Neil Jordan has built one of cinema’s most thoughtfully distinctive careers by returning, again and again, to characters who disdain being contained by the world they were born into. Fergus in The Crying Game (1992), a film that also dealt in identity, transformation, and the Irish Troubles, is undone and rebuilt by a love that defies every category he has. Claudia in Interview with the Vampire (1994) is a child trapped in a vampire’s body, a soul perpetually at war with her own nature. Even Tom Ripley in The Good Thief (2002) operates by a code entirely his own invention, and it works very well for him, thank you very much. Jordan seems fundamentally drawn to the checkered protagonist who wanders through a world that wasn’t built for them and decides to redecorate rather than conform.

Kitten is perhaps the purest distillation of that impulse. She is, as the film itself seems to understand, a little mad and a little saintly, like Saint Francis preaching to birds. The particular brand of stubbornness that allows a person to live entirely according to their own interior logic, regardless of what the world insists on, has always looked like holiness from one angle and lunacy from another. Kitten simply occupies both simultaneously and declines to apologize for either.

What makes her story so remarkable, and so Dickensian, is that she moves through the underskirts of society the way Oliver Twist moves through London, encountering vivid, sometimes grotesque, and occasionally tender characters one after another, yet still remaining “herself” through it all. The motorcycle gang members who could crush her choose instead to be charmed. The London police officers interrogating her in connection with a bombing find their procedural certainty eroding in real time. The IRA men who could destroy her find that what they cannot do is change her. That distinction is the movie’s entire thesis, delivered not in a speech but in the accumulated weight of scene after scene after scene.

As you watch it, the film becomes a series of slow, slinky seductions. And Jordan is careful to make clear that the goal of each one is never sex. It’s acceptance. Kitten is not looking for pleasure or even safety, exactly. She is looking for someone to see her clearly and respond with something warmer than contempt. Sometimes she finds it. Often she doesn’t. The search continues, regardless.

On the Journey vs. the Destination

Here is fair warning for anyone accustomed to tightly plotted narratives with satisfying three-act architecture: Breakfast on Pluto is not that film, and it has no interest in becoming it. The structure is episodic, deliberately fragmented, and at times meandering. And that’s not a flaw to be corrected but a formal choice to be understood. The film is adapted from McCabe’s novel, which itself unfolds as a series of chapters narrated by Kitten with a kind of breezy, unreliable charm. Translating that onto screen means embracing a rhythm that prioritizes texture over momentum.

This is a road movie without a clear road. A coming-of-age story where the character doesn’t so much come of age as insist on her own terms in every new location. Watch it the way you’d watch a documentary about someone genuinely fascinating: not to find out what happens, but to spend time in their company. If you surrender to that mode, the film rewards you enormously. If you’re waiting for the plot to tighten up and resolve cleanly, you’ll spend two hours floating through the wrong film.

On Cillian Murphy, Casting, and What Acting Actually Is

No contemporary discussion of this film can sidestep the question of casting, so let’s meet it directly and thoughtfully. By today’s standards, a meaningful segment of viewers will note (not unreasonably) that a cisgender man playing a trans woman represents a casting choice that the industry has largely moved away from, and that trans performers have been historically shut out of exactly these kinds of high-profile roles. That conversation is real and worth having.

And yet.

Acting, at its core, is the art of imaginative inhabitation—the radical act of living truthfully inside circumstances that are not your own. That is, literally, the entire job description. A cisgender white person writing a screenplay can and should write an array of characters who are none of those things. A horror novelist can write from inside the consciousness of a killer without being one. A performer can inhabit grief, joy, violence, transcendence, and identity formations entirely unlike their own lived experience, and sometimes, precisely because of that distance, bring a quality of observation and attention to the role that transforms it into something luminous.

Cillian Murphy’s performance in Breakfast on Pluto is luminous. It is one of the most nuanced, internally consistent, genuinely beautiful pieces of screen acting of the 2000s (a decade not short on strong performances). Murphy never plays Kitten as a joke or a spectacle or a symbol. He plays her as a specific, irreducible person with her own logic and her own grace, and he does it with such evident care that the character becomes completely real. To let casting politics prevent you from experiencing that performance would be, frankly, a loss that belongs entirely to you.

The conversation about representation in casting is ongoing, necessary, and far from settled. It can exist alongside the recognition that this particular performance, in this particular film, is worth your time.

Why It Matters Now

Breakfast on Pluto arrived in 2005 into a cultural moment that wasn’t quite ready for it. Too politically thorny for audiences who wanted their queer narratives warm and uncomplicated. Too whimsical and strange for the crowd that wanted their Irish Troubles stories grim and important. Too optimistic, somehow, for a year that seemed to prefer its outsider stories to end in tragedy.

Twenty-one years on, the cultural noise around gender identity and bodily autonomy has grown considerably louder (and considerably more hostile in certain quarters). Into that environment, Kitten walks with her feather boa and her dreamy denial and her absolute refusal to be defined by anyone else’s terms, and she feels less like a film character from a bygone era and more like a necessary figure. Not a martyr. Not a symbol. Not a lesson. Just a person who decided, against overwhelming evidence that the world would prefer otherwise, to be exactly who she was.

That’s the Gadfly renegade spirit. And that’s why this strange, glittering, half-forgotten film is still worth tracking down.

This allowed the Court to extend the First Amendment protection of the latter to the former. Further, since you could not limit the amount of speech, you could not do that for political donations. Of course, most people don’t have a lot of money to spend on campaigns (most Americans don’t even have any savings) whereas corporations have lots of dough in their war chest to unleash on elections and other issue campaigns. Also, many people don’t equate free speech with political donations. However, these nine people get to make the rules and that’s what they did here.

Let’s briefly reflect on how these new rules have impacted American society over the last decade and a half, regardless of how you feel about the original holding. Twenty years ago, political action committee (PAC) spending was virtually zero. Now, it accounts for several billion dollars worth of campaign money each election cycle, roughly four or five billion. Direct corporate spending is about twenty percent of that figure. Corporations tend to funnel their political donation money through PACs in order to muddy the waters as to their financial political involvement in elections. However, a lot of PAC money comes from a small number of extremely wealthy people. This leaves us with the reality of an elite group of people controlling the landscape of elections. This situation is exacerbated by the need for candidates to solicit donations from these spheres of influence.

Recently, some states have begun fighting back against these developments. Hawaii has led the way, but many others soon followed. Leaders in the far-flung island state have discerned and dispersed a modern and novel take off of this Supreme Court ruling. While the court said that corporations, and unions for that matter, have unlimited ability to spend on political donations because it should be considered speech, they did not speak to the definition or parameters of corporate power ex ante. Hawaii politicians rightfully reasoned that since corporations are a creation of state law, their creation can come with strings and these issues in general should be decided by the states where corporations are formed. Specifically, states can define the rights of corporations prior to their formation in a way that limits their corporate direct and indirect political spending. To be clear though, states can strip them of these powers before their creation but not after these quasi-citizens are “born.”

Activists in over a dozen states have been organizing to effect this change. Some notable ones include California, Massachusetts, and Montana. Hopefully, real “citizens” all over will realize this opportunity to push back against the Frankenstein’s monster the Supreme Court has created and allow for voters to influence elections more than ultra-rich citizens and corporations funneling their money through opaque organizations.

We need transparency. We need the stage of political debate to be occupied by the real people that live in this country. If this were the case, then perhaps voter turnout would rise, and voter apathy will fall. We may see a new birth of optimism and progress. Critical issues shoved to the side can reappear as the pet projects of special interest groups fade from view as their money and influence wane in significance. Only time will tell but it is interesting to see state governments legislating around the Supreme Court. To be sure, this is the general population rebuking and governing over the rulings of nine unelected people without much in common with the rest of us—all of them went to Harvard or Yale minus one, who went to Notre Dame. Americans should decide American elections, not corporate zombies or their sycophants in the Supreme Court.

The hallway smelled like cigarette smoke and lemon polish. Downstairs, jazz leaked through the walls of the hotel lounge while the bartender idly polished glasses. In Room 214, Sadie adjusted the clasp of her necklace in a mirror clouded by steam. She was twenty-six years old, recently divorced, and making more money in a week than she had in three months as a department store clerk. The newspapers would later call women like Sadie immoral, even as cities quietly depended on them anyway.

Across centuries and continents, societies’ relationships with sex work have been contradictory. Sex work was criminalized by the government, even as they taxed it. It was condemned publicly by religious leaders, even as they might have looked the other way privately. Men denounced prostitutes on their way to a brothel under cover of darkness. Feminists find themselves split over whether sex work represents exploitation or autonomy. For decades, entire economies have profited from sexual labor while pretending that labor existed outside respectable society.

Sex work contradictions are older than modern politics; in fact, they may even be older than civilization itself. Sex work hasn’t survived because societies accepted it, but because it was consistently required—economically, socially, psychologically. We refused to admit what that dependence revealed about power, gender, and desire.

Even in today’s modern times, the debate surrounding sex work is rarely only about sex—it’s about labor, survival, class, and consent. It’s about capitalism, morality, and control. But most of all, it’s about who gets punished for fulfilling desires society never stopped consuming.

Sacred, Tolerated, Taxed

Ancient civilizations have been regulating commercial sex with startling efficiency since long before modern governments invented morality campaigns.

Ancient Mesopotamia: Historians are still debating the extent of temple-based sexual rites. One thing that remains clear is that sexuality and commerce were deeply intertwined in urban life.

Ancient Greece: There were rigid social distinctions developed between different categories of women involved in sexual labor.

In Greece, elite courtesans, known as the hetaerae, sometimes had access to education, wealth, and influence that was often unavailable to wives confined to domestic life. Some of the hetaerae even entertained philosophers, politicians, and artists, but beneath this relative prestige existed another reality entirely: enslaved women working in brothels with no autonomy whatsoever.

The divide between the elite courtesans and the everyday housewives mattered.

Today, when people talk about historical prostitution, vastly different experiences are often flattened into a single narrative. However, ancient systems already reflected the same inequalities that are visible today. Wealthier women, especially those with elite clients, occasionally gained forms of agency, while poor women and enslaved people were trapped inside the brutal labor structures controlled by men, states, or owners.

This contradiction was perfectly understood in the Roman Empire. Brothels operated openly and sex workers were registered with authorities, while the state collected taxes. However, Roman society labeled prostitutes as morally inferior, while simultaneously integrating them into the economics of urban life.

Over and over, the same conclusion was reached: sex work was profitable, unavoidable, and socially useful, as long as the people performing it remained politically disposable.

That last condition has never changed.

When Sin Became Social Policy

By the time we entered the medieval era, religion had transformed sexual morality into a governing philosophy. In particular, Christianity reshaped prostitution into a symbol of spiritual decay while also preserving it as a tolerated institution.

The logic was strange but consistent.

Religious authorities often considered prostitution a necessary evil using the argument that commercial sex protected respectable women from male desire. This attitude placed the burden of containing lust onto the bodies of marginalized women. In the eyes of society, the prostitute became both contaminant and a sacrificial buffer: sinful enough to condemn, useful enough to keep around.

Across medieval Europe, cities established tolerated brothel districts despite official condemnation from the pulpit. The government fined sex workers, regulated clothing, and imposed restrictions designed to visibly separate them from honorable women. All of this made morality an administrative task.

During this time, public punishment became theatrical: women were accused of prostitution and humiliated in public marketplaces, imprisoned, and/or forced into religious rehabilitation programs built around repentance narratives. Since time immemorial, male clients have usually escaped scrutiny entirely. The hypocrisy was structural, rather than subtle.

Colonials later used their power to export these moral systems worldwide. In Europe, empires imposed Christian sexual frameworks onto colonized populations, even as they exploited indigenous women economically and sexually. Governments preached virtue while also maintaining military brothel systems near ports, barracks, and trade centers.

Because this pattern has been repeated so consistently across centuries, it becomes difficult to ignore the underlying truth: that societies were less concerned with eliminating sex work than with controlling the visibility of women who disrupted idealized gender roles.

Sex workers threatened a particular fantasy — the fantasy that female sexuality existed only inside marriage, romance, or domesticity.

Reality kept interfering.

The City Needed Workers. It Also Needed Scapegoats.

Industrialization intensified everything.

As the nineteenth century dawned, major cities like London, Paris, New York, and Chicago were exploding with migrants, housing was becoming overcrowded, and economic inequality was widening. Women were entering urban labor markets in larger numbers, while remaining trapped in low-paying jobs with brutal hours and few, if any, protections. Jobs in domestic service, textile factories, and shop work often paid less than survival required. These inequalities meant that sex work, for many women, became an economic calculation rather than a moral identity.

That terrified respectable society.

Along with the rise of industrial capitalism and urban policing systems came the modern stigma surrounding prostitution. Poor women began occupying public spaces in unprecedented numbers, a visibility that generated panic among the middle and upper classes, who were already anxious about immigration, disease, labor unrest, and collapsing traditional norms.

During this time, governing entities responded by policing women’s bodies aggressively under the guise of public health. In Britain, Contagious Diseases Acts allowed authorities to forcibly examine women suspected of prostitution for venereal disease. However, men who purchased sex faced little to no equivalent scrutiny. Female bodies were treated as potential sources of contamination requiring surveillance and regulation. Most notably, the laws targeted suspicion itself: a woman could be detained simply for appearing promiscuous, poor, or insufficiently respectable.

Meanwhile, red-light districts flourished everywhere from frontier towns in the American West to Parisian pleasure quarters to Japan’s licensed entertainment districts. Brothels operated near railroad lines, mining towns, military bases, and ports because rapidly expanding economies depended on transient male labor populations.

Cities profited enormously from vice economies while pretending those economies represented moral failure rather than predictable outcomes of industrial inequality. The modern stigma was never only about sex. It was about fear of uncontrolled urban labor, female independence, and public disorder. Prostitutes became the perfect symbol onto which societies could project the anxieties they couldn’t otherwise contain.

Empowerment, Exploitation, or Both?

When it comes to feminism, few modern debates fracture it more sharply than sex work.

One side argues that prostitution cannot be separated from patriarchal exploitation, while the other side argues that denying sex workers autonomy reinforces paternalistic control over women’s choices. While each perspective emerged from legitimate concerns, both perspectives contain uncomfortable truths.

Radical feminist thinkers like Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon viewed prostitution as inseparable from systems that commodify women’s bodies for male consumption. The crux of this viewpoint is that economic inequality undermines meaningful consent. If survival requires selling intimacy, can that choice ever be entirely free?

That question remains explosive politically because it forces societies to confront the broader problem of capitalism compelling people to sell their bodies in countless ways—construction workers destroy their joints, warehouse employees collapse from exhaustion, and athletes risk brain damage (or worse) to kowtow to entertainment industries worth billions of dollars. However, sexual labor continues to be uniquely stigmatized.

Why is that?

In part, it’s because sex destabilizes the comforting fiction that labor markets are emotionally neutral. Sex worker rights activists pushed back aggressively against narratives portraying all prostitutes as passive victims. Activists like Carol Leigh reframed prostitution as labor deserving protections rather than moral judgment, while organizations such as Amnesty International argued that criminalization increases violence and vulnerability by pushing workers underground.

Neither side fully resolves the tension.

Sex workers are often able to achieve genuine autonomy, financial independence, and empowerment through their work. However, it doesn’t always work out that way. Many workers describe coercion, economic desperation, abuse, and trafficking. It’s also possible for the same person to experience both of these realities simultaneously.

The public debate frequently collapses because people demand ideological purity from an industry shaped by contradiction. Sex work can contain agency and exploitation at the same time. Labor systems often do.

Illegal Everywhere, Except Where It Isn’t

When it comes to modern legal approaches to sex work, they often resemble a patchwork quilt stitched together by competing moral philosophies.

There are no universal laws around sex work and prostitution. In some places, sex work is still fully criminalized, while in other areas, selling sex is legal, but buying it isn’t. In other areas still, heavily regulated brothel systems operate under state oversight. No single model entirely eliminates controversy, violence, or exploitation, a fact that frustrates policymakers searching for clear solutions.

In the Netherlands, prostitution has been legalized and regulated in an effort to improve worker safety and transparency; Germany has implemented a similar model. In the United States, Nevada allows licensed brothels to operate in certain parts of the state, while making it illegal in others. New Zealand has adopted one of the world’s most closely watched decriminalization frameworks, with an emphasis on labor rights and harm reduction.

Those who are in support of legalization argue that regulation reduces violence, improves access to healthcare, and enables workers to seek legal protection without the fear of being arrested.

However, critics counter that regulation often creates two separate industries: workers who can comply with licensing systems and workers who cannot. There are many workers who remain outside legal protections entirely, including migrants, undocumented individuals, transgender workers, and people living in poverty.

Sweden introduced the Nordic Model, which decriminalizes selling sex while making the purchase of sex illegal. Those advocating for the system frame it as targeting demand rather than punishing vulnerable workers. On the flip side, the Model’s opponents argue that it drives the industry underground by making clients fearful of repercussions and interactions more secretive.

Every legal framework reveals something deeper about the societies creating it. Criminalization prioritizes morality and social order. Legalization prioritizes regulation whereas decriminalization prioritizes labor rights and harm reduction. However, no legal framework fully solves the central paradox: the fact that governments are struggling to decide whether sex work represents commerce, violence, intimacy, or all three at the same time.

From Street Corners to Subscription Platforms

With the advent of the internet, the sex work conversation was detonated in a way it hadn’t been previously.

Digital technology has transformed sex work more dramatically than any other development since urban industrialization. The internet enables workers to screen clients, advertise themselves, and create subscription models, while bypassing traditional gatekeepers, such as agencies and brothel owners.

Platforms like OnlyFans represent unprecedented autonomy for many sex workers. These platforms allow performers to control their schedules, pricing, branding, and boundaries. The rise of the creator economy has blurred the lines between influencer culture, pornography, companionship, and entrepreneurship.

However, technology rarely liberates without introducing new forms of dependency. Online sex workers are vulnerable to algorithmic censorship, payment processor bans, platform surveillance, and digital harassment. Laws such as FOSTA-SESTA, designed to combat trafficking, led to the widespread shutdown of online spaces sex workers had used to screen dangerous clients and share safety information.

The consequences of this have been immediate, often pushing workers back into riskier offline environments.

At the same time, mainstream culture has become increasingly comfortable monetizing sexuality everywhere else. Influencer marketing, parasocial intimacy, livestream platforms, and subscription content have normalized forms of emotional and sexual performance previously pushed to society’s margins, sharpening the contradiction again.

Modern economies encourage people to monetize nearly every aspect of themselves—personalities, relationships, hobbies, emotions, appearance—while continuing to treat explicit sexual labor as uniquely scandalous. The line between acceptable digital intimacy and stigmatized sexual commerce grows blurrier every year. No one seems entirely sure where the distinction begins anymore.

Who Gets Sympathy?

Not all sex workers are treated equally.

Public empathy tends to concentrate around specific narratives: the tragic victim, the glamorous escort, the memoirist escaping addiction, the fictionalized Hollywood call girl with a hidden heart of gold. Meanwhile, poor workers, transgender workers, migrants, disabled workers, and street-based workers often remain criminalized, invisible, or disposable.

The politics of respectability shape nearly every conversation about sex work.

Race matters profoundly. Black women historically face hypersexualized stereotypes used to justify harsher policing and reduced social sympathy. LGBTQ+ youth disproportionately enter survival sex economies due to homelessness and family rejection. Migrant workers navigate legal systems that frequently conflate trafficking with migration itself.

Media portrayals simplify these realities into narratives audiences find emotionally comfortable. The public prefers clear categories: victim or empowered entrepreneur. Reality rarely cooperates. Most people involved in sex work exist somewhere inside a far messier landscape shaped by economics, caregiving responsibilities, trauma, ambition, survival, intimacy, and opportunity. Like other workers, they make decisions within systems they did not create.

That complexity frustrates political movements built on certainty. But perhaps certainty was never available here in the first place.

An Argument Civilization Keeps Having With Itself

The woman in Room 214 eventually leaves the hotel just before sunrise. A politician passes her in the lobby without making eye contact. The bartender counts tips. The city wakes up around them, pretending once again that respectable society operates independently from the desires quietly sustaining it. It never has.

For thousands of years, sex work has functioned as a mirror reflecting the anxieties civilizations struggle most to confront. Consent under economic inequality. The relationship between morality and labor. The policing of women’s bodies. The commodification of intimacy. The uncomfortable reality that societies routinely consume what they publicly condemn.

The debate persists because no legal framework or ideological movement fully resolves those contradictions. Perhaps it cannot. Sex work forces cultures to confront a deeply destabilizing question: if labor involves selling parts of ourselves to survive, why does sexual labor provoke such singular panic? The answer may reveal less about sex workers than about the societies judging them.

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When I was an undergrad, more than twenty years ago, there was debate on my small liberal arts campus about the value of a liberal arts education. And the same arguments circle today. I can agree that they aren’t always great at getting us our ideal job, but we are fit for many jobs because these degrees teach how to problem-solve and research a topic thoroughly.

Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., aka RFK, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, also has no medical degree. It’s not a requirement, or even that common, for the HHS Secretary to be an MD. But I think one of the most important things about not being a doctor is to never pretend to be one. Unfortunately, RFK, Jr., is full of the confidence of a doctor without any of the training or knowledge, or even an attempt at gaining the knowledge.

Of course, it’s possible for all of us to educate ourselves on a topic without a degree. Unfortunately, the information RFK, Jr., chooses to disseminate is either false or misleading. He is most well-known for his vaccine “skepticism,” or more accurately, lies. But this isn’t the only health issue he has addressed without full grasp of the facts.

NPR reported recently about another one of his ideas related to treating drug addiction, and it has the potential to be just as dangerous.

During his bid for president, he spoke about using wellness farms to “reparent” Black children – something for which Senator Angela Alsobrooks rightly took him to task last month – as a way to stem the drug addiction crisis in the United States.

NPR reported: “This wasn’t the first time Kennedy cited the small, often controversial, Italian farm community located a two-hour drive east of Florence. He has repeatedly described San Patrignano as a template for the sweeping federal program….which he proposed to create.”

But like Kennedy’s under-researched and incorrect claims about childhood vaccines, his optimism for these wellness farms is misplaced. Of course, more community and support would serve as a way to help people who are struggling with any number of problems to not turn to drug or alcohol abuse. But as medical professionals have pointed out, a wellness farm, which is abstinence-only, is not the answer for opioid addiction treatment.

San Patrignano residents typically suffer from alcohol or cocaine addiction, which is not treated in the same way as opioids. In fact, NPR interviewed Dr. Robert Heimer from Yale University School of Public Health, whose “research shows that when people addicted to opioids attempt to stop using street drugs without the aid of medications, they typically relapse within a short time.” This relapse after abstinence puts them at even more risk of a deadly overdose. Abstinence is widely recognized as a poor treatment for opioid addiction, and researchers favor medication and counseling, as Heimer suggested.

There’s no doubt that Kennedy has had a long and storied career, and he has a history of using his name and connections to help ordinary people, especially in his work as an environmental lawyer. Given his own drug abuse history, he has the opportunity to leverage his experience to help people with far fewer resources and support than he had.

Leaders at San Patrignano only became aware of Kennedy’s interest in their program through the media, and are skeptical of its applicability in the U.S. NPR found no record of Kennedy ever visiting the site. But it hasn’t stopped him from pretending to know how it works and claiming that it would work for treating victims of the opioid epidemic here in the United States, which itself is unique in the world. This epidemic deserves our serious attention, particularly because our government and economic structure made it almost inevitable.

The problem with being a Kennedy is that their own experiences have been and will continue to be highly unique. Any plan RFK, Jr., puts forward that will actually help people will require research, as well as listening to experts and victims with real-world experience. Instead, it seems he’s choosing to skim headlines, much like his boss. He needs to take off the rose-colored glasses and do at least as much research about his idealized treatment plan as reporters at NPR.

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In fact, the entire ordeal feels like a childish event that we did not RSVP to or care to play. Who would play a game where the only prize is frustration? We have only been forced to pay stricter scrutiny to this department of government because politicians and justices have employed it to their own selfish ends. They have forgotten the order of democracy. We must remind them.

It all started down in Texas, as most dastardly things do. Normally, congressional maps are redrawn every ten years after the census is taken. While most states give a wink and a nod to objective redistricting, some took liberties over the years and drew districts here and there to secure a win. However, never in modern history have we witnessed such an abandonment of convention and blatant power grab, designed not for the betterment of American democracy, but for the sole purpose of silencing minority political participation. We see this perversion of liberty in our courts and in our legislatures. We saw it first in Texas.

Texas Republicans openly declared war on the voting rights of their own constituents by initiating a mid-decade redistricting program. If that was not bizarre enough, their plan transparently aimed at and gunned down the political power of minorities. Their goals could not be more obvious or antagonistic to our tradition of American democracy: one person, one vote. Instead of drawing districts objectively and impartially, they drew them politically and insincerely. Democratic strongholds were grouped together to reduce the total number of seats they would win.

Not to be outdone, and maybe to gain attention for an upcoming national election, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom (who is back from serving time in social isolation for having an affair with the wife of his campaign manager and close friend), announced he was fighting back against Texas Republicans by kicking off a mid-decade redistricting session of his own.

Again, we saw the party in power begin reshaping government not for our rights and liberties but for their own power and prowess, though this time it was the Democrats. Both sides in this tit for tat openly bragged that their actions erased the advantage the other secured. Both sides ignored the fact that they were acting contrary to the fundamental premise of the (lower case “r”) republican form of government: voters should choose their politicians instead of the other way around.

Right? Virginia did not think so. It tried to jump into this nerdy wrestling match itself. Before it could land any punches though, courts stepped in and blocked their gambit. This did not stop President Trump. Historically, he has viewed court opinions as advisory statements rather than judicial precedent other branches of government have to follow. Currently, he is busy proving that statement true by going around the nation and threatening Republican states with retribution if they do not abandon notions of fair governance and objective redistricting and politically redraw their maps to his liking. Against this berating, some states have shown true courage, and ones we might not expect. Unfortunately, Indiana Republicans learned the harsh realities of standing on the cliffs of principles prone to the biting winds of political bullying.

Can we look to the high Court for protection of our American democracy? No. On this matter, the Supreme Court put the high in high Court, at least it seems they were when they wrote their opinion on the recent case addressing this topic: Louisiana v. Callais. Here, the state Louisiana, per Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, designated two districts as majority-minority. This meant that those districts and the voters within them could not have their votes diluted through gerrymandering. At this point, it is important to consider that this law is only in effect because for one hundred years minority voting rights were diluted through gerrymandering, poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, violence, and more. Bad people are creative.

Writing for the majority, Justice Alito ruled that claimants must prove that states intentionally meant to dilute minority voting rights to succeed on claims of gerrymandering, especially related to minority vote dilution. Who could ever find such evidence? Put another way, what politician would be so stupid to reduce that intention to writing or broadcast it through other means?

Remember though, that justices, like politicians, are people with agendas of their own, and quite often contrary to their role and jurisdiction. On that point, Alito, whom many see as maybe the most political actor on the court, said, “Allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost any other context.” This is directly inapposite to what the law says, so this might be the clearest example of (conservative) judicial activism and reminds us of when the high court tried to rewrite the 14th amendment to the constitution not long ago. It is also completely contrary to the reasoning he has used for other cases, that the text of the law decides everything and that you cannot look beyond the four corners of the document to change the meaning of the words on the laws.

But he did so here. In justifying the court’s change of course, Alito highlighted developments in recent years, including “social change” in the South, where most of the race-based redistricting challenges arise. Funny though how much he has changed from a textualist or originalist - and a legal groupie of the late Justice Scalia - and is now using the methods of liberal justices whom he has historically derided to get to his point. Why did Alito reverse course and swap out the logic he has applied to nearly every other case in his whole career and go beyond the text of the law to justify his rewriting of it? Does he have multiple personality disorder? No, his reasons are transparent: pure politics and judicial activism.

Aside from the merits of this case, one thing is certain: conservative members of the supreme court are acting as legislators and undoing the work of congress in a manner they used to excoriate. Why should nine unelected people, and really just a few conservative political actors within that group, decide these issues and undo everything Americans voted for many times over the last sixty years? The political agenda of the court has never been more in doubt when it strikes down legislation it does not like and points, not to laws or the constitution, but to their own policy justifications. This is a perversion and the same Justices that ruled on this matter said the same thing when they lost on similar cases in the past.

There is a broader point here. Legislators and Justices and the President are each trying to fashion the playing field of our democracy for themselves. They forget that the construction and management of liberty’s landscape is subject to our authority and control. They are all running afoul of their jurisdiction. We should fly around them and remind them who the real sheriff is.