by zahlman | 2025-10-11 16:18:17+00:00
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think CNN's legal argument holds up. Which is to say, law would have to be added to mint this, but nothing would have to be repealed.

> It’s not clear the controversial coin design will be minted: It’s against US law to display the image of a sitting president or living former president. A president may be featured on a coin no sooner than two years following the president’s death. “No coin issued under this subsection may bear the image of a living former or current President, or of any deceased former President during the 2-year period following the date of the death of that President,” according to the US code governing coin design.

This quote is from the section "(n) Redesign and Issuance of Circulating $1 Coins Honoring Each of the Presidents of the United States" of the cited law, 31 USC§5112. But the coin described can't possibly be part of this series, because the reverse does not depict "a likeness of the Statue of Liberty extending to the rim of the coin and large enough to provide a dramatic representation of Liberty while not being large enough to create the impression of a “2-headed” coin".

The second half of the argument goes:

> In anticipation of America’s 250th anniversary, Congress passed the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act, which allows the US Treasury to mint special $1 coins to celebrate the event. The act states that the Treasury secretary may “mint for issuance during the one-year period beginning January 1, 2026, $1 dollar coins with designs emblematic of the United States semiquincentennial.”

> That law also states, “No head and shoulders portrait or bust of any person, living or dead, and no portrait of a living person may be included in the design on the reverse of specified coins.”

The bill cited (H.R.1923) does have this text. It also appears to have been incorporated as section (y) of 31 USC§5112, and then section (aa) also describes such a limitation. The coin design also could plausibly put it in this category, presuming that it was "selected by the Secretary after consultation with Commission of Fine Arts and review by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee" and "developed and selected in accordance with the design selection process developed by the Secretary in consultation with the United States Semiquincentennial Commission and with recommendations from the general public." It doesn't appear that the actual design elements are directly mandated.

However, this is still presuming that the coin design is intended to be part of the issuance described in (y). It wouldn't necessarily be, even if it generally looks like others issued in that way. (And if it is part of this issuance, then it clearly can't also be part of the issuance described in (n), so those restrictions don't apply.) Further, sections (n) and (y) both specifically describe circulating coins, and we don't know whether this coin is intended to be legal tender or purely commemorative.

The construction of 31 USC§5112 sets clear precedent that every new design, or class of designs, has to be whitelisted; but I see nothing that restricts future whitelisted designs from including depictions of living persons (President or otherwise). Hence all the sections, from (a) to (aa), each quite lengthy. For all we know, the plan is to rush in an (ab) by the end of the year.