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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Troodon, post: 224753, member: 4626&quot;]One of the senators from North Dakota wanted to make sure that Sacagaweas weren&#039;t discontinued and made a big stink about it, so they amended the presidential dollar legislation so that 1/3 of all dollar coins must be Sacagaweas.</p><p><br /></p><p>The politics of such things comes into play when congressmen want to make sure well known figures from their state get honored and stay honored for the sake of looking good to their constituents.&nbsp; (Sacagawea is widely believed to have been born and spent a great deal of her life in what&#039;s now North Dakota.)&nbsp; Same reason they still mint Kennedy halves, despite them being little used in circulation for their entire run.&nbsp; There&#039;s little political advantage to be gained for fighting congressmen&#039;s pet projects; it usually pays to support others&#039; projects so that they&#039;ll support yours, so there&#039;s little motivation to fight minor things of ths nature which few constituents oppose.&nbsp; Senators especially stake their re-election chances on how many goodies they can get for their state out of the federal pinata.&nbsp; Whatever you think about it, that&#039;s the modern political reality, lol...</p><p><br /></p><p>As to who benefits, besides the miners of the metals the coin is made out of, anyone who wants to feel good about Sacagawea being honored (on a coin that is almost never used) I suppose, which in one ND senator&#039;s mind, was his constituents.&nbsp; Coin legislation often has a lot of &quot;feel good&quot; qualities to it, where practicalities tend to take a backseat to the need to make their constituents feel good about what is being passed.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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