The California Senate has made progress on a set of reparations proposals. These plans include creating an agency to help Black families trace their family history and confirm if they are eligible for future compensation from the state.
Lawmakers also approved bills to set up a fund for reparations programs and to compensate Black families for property that was unfairly taken from them by the government. These proposals will now be reviewed by the state Assembly.
State Senator Steven Bradford, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said California has a big responsibility to make up for past injustices against Black Californians. “If you can inherit wealth from your family, you can also inherit debt,” Bradford said. “Reparations are a debt owed to descendants of slavery.”
These proposals are part of a larger set of bills inspired by recommendations from a special task force. This task force spent two years studying how California could make up for its history of racism and discrimination against African Americans. However, lawmakers did not propose a plan this year to give widespread payments to the descendants of enslaved Black people, which has disappointed many supporters of reparations.
In the U.S. Congress, a bill to study reparations for African Americans has been stuck since it was first introduced in the 1980s. Recently, Illinois and New York passed laws to study reparations, but no other state has progressed as much as California in considering reparations for Black Americans.
State Senator Roger Niello, a Republican from the Sacramento area, said he supports the idea of compensating families whose land was taken by local governments. But he doesn’t think all state taxpayers should have to pay for this. “That seems unfair to me,” Niello said.
These votes come in the last week for lawmakers to pass bills in their house of origin. Recently, a key committee blocked a bill that would have provided property tax and housing assistance to the descendants of enslaved people. The state Assembly also advanced a bill last week to formally apologize for California’s history of discrimination against Black Californians. In 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom apologized for the state’s history of violence and mistreatment of Native Americans.
Some people against reparations think lawmakers are promising more than they can deliver, especially since California faces a big budget deficit. Republican Assemblymember Bill Essayli from Riverside County said, “It seems like they are setting up these agencies and plans to give out reparations without actually passing any reparations.”
Running the new agency could cost the state up to $1 million a year. The Senate Appropriations Committee didn’t release cost estimates for the other bills, but they say it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to investigate claims from families who say their land was taken because of racial discrimination.
Chris Lodgson, an organizer with the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, said the votes are a “first step” toward passing more significant reparations laws in California. “This is a historic day,” Lodgson said.
