Pushing the Bill: Twain coin could benefit museum
Mark Twain supporters, attraction operators and collectors across the country are hoping to receive a huge gift in 2016.
That’s when a commemorative coin honoring the great American author would be distributed in limited quantities of silver and gold will be produced and sold.
But there’s work getting done now to secure the celebrations four years from now. The coin would be produced by the U.S. Mint and the bill giving the department the go-ahead to do the work has to be signed by the president.
The bill has 297 signatures (it only needs 290) in the U.S. House of Representatives thanks to big pushes by Missouri’s Blaine Leutkemeyer and Connecticut’s John Larson, now it’s a matter of moving everything along so there can be talk on the congressional floor so the bill can proceed to the Senate and eventually President Barack Obama.
“The bill would normally start in the sub-committee that’s chaired by Ron Paul and because he’s out on the (presidential) campaign trail, we are going to try and have to skip over that committee and go directly to the full committee for the markup and get the bill out that way,” Leutkemeyer said Monday afternoon. “That’s our next hurdle we have to overcome, shouldn’t be a difficult process because Mr. Paul’s not going to be there, and it’s not that unusual to be able to do that.”
Missouri Senators Roy Blunt and Claire McCaskill already support the bill along with senate members from states where there are Twain attractions; New York, Connecticut and California. Included in that mix is former vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, a Senator from Connecticut.
“This coin is a budget neutral bill and what will happen is collectors buy these coins — they mint a limited quantity of silver and gold coins each year to different themes and then those coins are sold to collectors,” Cindy Lovell, executive director of the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal, said. “The proceeds from this will be divided equally among the four Mark Twain sites. This has the potential to yield quite a bit of money for the museum.”
In fact the commemorative Mark Twain coin could bring in an estimated $1 million to the museum. The funds would go toward restoring the historic Grant’s Drug Store.
“It needs total restoration, and that’s a million dollars waiting to be spent. We do not have a million dollars sitting around here, so if we could keep that building in good shape and hold it together, keep our regular maintenance on it, come 2016 we could count on those funds and we could jump in there and get that restored,” Lovell said. “If a miracle hasn’t occurred in the meantime to provide those funds.”
There is an urgency to get this bill passed as quickly as possible and sent to the president’s desk. This is the third attempt in honoring Mark Twain with a commemorative coin and since this is an election year, not only the president, but a number of other politicians supporting the bill, could be voted out of office by November.
“It’s a bi-partisan effort. It’s not a controversial piece of legislation. It’s a suspension-type bill that often times leadership is looking for to be able to have extra votes on the floor and they need suspension bills to do that. It’s just a matter of getting through the process now,” Leutkemeyer said. “Hopefully by late spring, early summer, we’ll be able to get the bill through the House and to the Senate so they can get to work on it.”
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Pushing the Bill: Twain coin could benefit museum