A gal for the $20 bill? That's easy: Jeannette Rankin

 Yesterday, NH Senator Jeanne Shaheen introduced a bill to have a woman replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill by 2020, to coincide with the centenary of women's suffrage. Notables like Eleanor Roosevelt and Rosa Parks are leading the pack to be the first women on our paper currency since Martha Washington in 1896. My pick is former Montana Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin, who served two terms in the US House, 1917-1919, and... 1941-1943. Before Congress, Rankin eschewed marriage and family to earn a college degree and work full time as a lobbyist for the National American Women's Suffrage Association. Their victory in Montana is what allowed her into Congress before Universal Suffrage, making her the only woman to vote for it in Congress. In April, 1917, Rankin was one of 50 members of Congress voting against President Wilson's Declaration of War against Germany in WWI. The majority vote for senseless war was one of the worst decisions in American history. Her nay vote sealed her defeat in 1918. She spent the next 22 years working tirelessly for peace and the rights of women and children. In 1940, the cause of peace made her run for Congress again. She won and got the chance to vote against our last declared war against Japan. Facing hisses and calls demanding she change her vote to make it unanimous, she said "I can't go to war (as a woman) so I can't send anyone else." Then she ran from a mob out for blood; hiding in a phone both and calling the cops for protection. Bounced from Congress again in 1942, Rankin soldiered on for her causes of peace and justice for another 31 years.

Rankin's story is largely written out of the American Story that glorifies war and papers over our denial of full civil rights to all throughout our history whether based on race, gender or sexual orientation. Putting Rankin on the paper twenty will be a fitting way to right that story. It will make me and every peace loving and inclusive American proud every time we spot her awesome, courageous visage for the rest of our lives.