Bill would add Reagan’s image to Mount Rushmore

WASHINGTON – California Rep. Doug Ose introduced legislation Thursday to carve the image of former President Ronald Reagan onto Mount Rushmore, where it would join the granite images of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt at the South Dakota national memorial.

“The president who finished the Cold War should be recognized,” the Sacramento Republican said. “This would be an appropriate recognition.”

But the National Park Service may have a different idea.

Paul Menard, management specialist at the national memorial, said the agency regards Mount Rushmore as a “completed work of art.”

But beyond that philosophical debate, he said, engineering consultants believe that carving another face into the granite mountain would require blasting and drilling which could damage those already there.

“There isn’t room for another head of the same scale,” he said. “And the mountain has structural issues.”

With only a few weeks left in the congressional session, it’s doubtful there is time for the bill to get much consideration. Other legislation to add Reagan’s image to the dime, the $10 bill and the $20 bill also is pending in Congress, and has yet to move an inch.

Ose is retiring at the end of the year and so won’t be around to introduce it in the next congressional session.