SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Members of California’s Legislative Black Caucus formally introduced 14 reparations bills that result from recommendations made by the first-in-the-nation task force.
“It involves a comprehensive approach to dismantling slavery and systemic discrimination,” said CLBC Chair Lori Wilson.
The CLBC’s proposals include bills on education, civil rights, criminal justice reform, health and business.
However, none of the measures involve direct cash payments for descendants of enslaved Californians.
Wilson acknowledged the growing budget deficit is part of the reason none of the bills being proposed this year focus on monetary compensation.
“The budget constraints are real. We recognize them, and we have to operate within them, but it is not the primary driver. It’s just a recognition that is one of our constraint, one of our primary constraints, is really education,” notes Wilson.
Educating other lawmakers on the history of slavery and California’s discriminatory laws despite being a free state is one of the CLBC’s main goals this year.
Assemblymember Akilah Weber explains educating their own colleagues is key to having success in passing reparation legislation.
“We have to get a majority in both houses to vote on these bills so that we can get them to the governor’s desk and that’s going to take educating them, educating their communities,” Weber adds.
According to a UC Berkeley poll, 59% of California voters oppose cash payments, saying it’s unfair to ask taxpayers to compensate for the state’s past wrongs.
Some of the bills the caucus hopes to get to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk this year include ensuring healthy food is covered under MediCal, ending solitary confinement in state prisons, removing barriers for those with a criminal record to get business licenses, and providing financial aid for career education in redlined communities.
Reparations activists like Chris Lodgson with the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California claim while those may be good policies, they are not reparations.
“If it doesn’t include direct money payments and compensation to California residents who are descendants of those emancipated from Chattel Slavery in the U.S., it’s not Reparations,” Lodgson said.
The CLBC adds even though there aren’t any bills to issue cash payments this year, members will continue working to make that a reality within the next decade.
“The community’s call for immediate direct compensation is not lost on us. The pragmatic realities of governing and legislating in the largest budget deficit in the history of California is also not lost on us,” added Assemblymember Isaac Bryan.
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