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Message:: [QUOTE="Jess, post: 854, member: 77"]personally I like the idea, however, make your own minds up.  Pay no attention to the reporter who calls these stathood quarters entirely seperate bill, has passed the Senate waiting on Congress.  Below is the mag article:  D.C. Could Be in the Money: House Approves Quarter Coin By Spencer S. HsuWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, October 8, 2002; Page B01 George Washington's namesake city may get a quarter of its own after all. Five years after the U.S. Mint began commemorating the 50 states with special-issue quarter coins, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories would get to join the honor roll under legislation unanimously approved yesterday by the House of Representatives. D.C. representatives have lobbied Congress since 1997 to recognize the nation's capital in the phenomenally popular program, which allows each state to emboss its name and its own design on the back of the coin whose face bears the profile of the first president. As District residents pursue their long quest for voting representation in Congress and "first-class" citizenship, exclusion of the federal enclave from the program has been a special humiliation, said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.). "This coin bill . . . may not mean much to the average citizen, but it means a great deal to those of us who live in the District of Columbia," said Norton, who called the measure "a matter of particular pride" during a speech on the House floor, where it passed by voice vote. "We are sensitive to find ways to indicate our unity with the 50 states." With time running out on this year's Congress, the bill's fate in the Senate is unclear. A spokesman for Banking Committee Chairman Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.) said that the measure has no lead sponsor and that a recent committee rule requires commemorative coin acts to have 67 co-sponsors. "The future is pretty uncertain right now," Sarbanes spokesman Jesse Jacobs said. Some members evidently hesitate to expand the 50-state program to nonstates. Besides the District, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands would each get a coin under the House bill. Under the existing commemorative program, each of the nifty 50 submits a design to the Treasury Department. Working in the order that each state joined the Union, the mint produces each state's quarter for 10 weeks, working out to five states a year for 10 years. Delaware came first, in 1999, and Maryland and Virginia had quarters produced in 2000 featuring the Annapolis State House and the Jamestown settlement, respectively. All sides say the initial exclusion of the District was an oversight. The new bill envisions a competition to decide the specific emblems denoting the District's geography, history and contributions to the United States. In the past, such a thought has produced snickers, as uncharitable media pundits nominated pothole-filled streets or a certain disgraced former mayor for the back of the D.C. quarter. But with the District enjoying better days, supporters, such as the Association of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia, the city's oldest civic organization, are hoping for more respect. One proposed design features the Frederick Douglass Home, for example. The quarter program has been a breakthrough for numismatists, or coin collectors, and a boon for the U.S. Treasury. A federal study estimates that 139 million Americans are collecting the quarters, producing a windfall of $6 billion to $8 billion as currency is in effect purchased from the government and taken out of circulation. Before the first new quarters rolled out in January 1999, the U.S. Mint manufactured 1.5 billion to 2 billion quarters a year. Since 1999, the government has produced 4.4 billion, 6.5 billion and 4.8 billion each year. It costs only about a nickel to produce each quarter, so the program is basically minting 20 cents of profit for the treasury with every quarter. This year, coins have been issued for Tennessee, Louisiana and Indiana, with Mississippi on deck later this month. According to mint spokesman Michael White, Virginia's was the most popular run, gracing the backs of 1.6 billion coins. White said the mint has to keep producing coins because of collector demand. The anticipated minting run when the program began was about 700 million quarters for each state. "We mint to demand," White said. "It's been a fabulous force in coin collecting."[/QUOTE]

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