The California slavery reparations task force recommended dozens of remedies to right the wrongs of the past last year. Some of those proposals have already been adopted, including requiring the state to apologize for slavery, racism, and discrimination.
However, two bills in the California legislature that would have begun the process of paying blacks for slavery and discrimination never got to the floor for a vote. The two bills – Senate Bills 1403 and 1331 – would have created a fund and a new reparations agency to oversee measures to implement the task force's recommendations.
The bills never made it to the floor because the California Legislative Black Caucus didn't like the amendments that were added to the bills. Instead of creating a new agency and money to fund it, a Gavin-Newsom-supported amendment would have sent the issue of reparations to another task force to study how to implement it.
This didn't sit well with activists.
"The speaker needs to bring the bills up now, now, now. These are their bills. They have their names on the bills. They’re killing their own bills because they’re scared of the governor," one Black man, a member of the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, said. "Now listen, they’re gonna see this, and they’re gonna get mad at us. They killing their own bills, and then they’re gonna get mad at us. They’re killing their own bills because they’re scared of the governor. We don’t care. Bring the G-- d--- bills up now, now, now."
The problems associated with implementing the monetary part of the reparations bills are monumental. Who gets what and how much? Do you have to be a direct descendant of slaves to be eligible for your cut? Do slavery descendants get more than blacks who were only discriminated against? And what about blacks who've come to America in the last few years? Why should they get any money at all?
And if we're going to pay blacks for being discriminated against, why not the Irish? Why not the Germans, Italians, and Slavs?
Any plan to actually pay reparations is going to be tied up in court for a generation or two. Clearly, the issues associated with reparations need far more thought than black activists and the lawmakers who are doing their bidding have given the matter.
Some of the activists think that not passing the reparations bills will damage Kamala Harris politically.
"We need to send a message to the governor," said a Black woman who is part of the same group protesting in the rotunda. "The governor needs to understand the world is watching California and this is gonna have a direct impact on your friend Kamala Harris who is running for president. This is going to have a direct impact, so pull up the bills now, vote on them and sign them. We’ve been waiting for over 400 years."
State Sen. Steven Bradford, who authored the measures, said the bills failed to move forward out of fear that Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom would veto them.
"We’re at the finish line, and we, as the Black Caucus, owe it to the descendants of chattel slavery, to Black Californians and Black Americans, to move this legislation forward," Bradford said, urging his colleagues to reconsider Saturday afternoon, according to the Associated Press.
"We owe it to our ancestors," Bradford added, according to the Sacramento Bee. "And I think we disappointed them in a way."
Newsom was going to veto the bills because California is in the midst of a budget crisis. He's also hesitant to be associated with a bill that could be detrimental to a presidential run in 2028. The whole issue of reparations is toxic because the idea of collective white guilt is without precedent in American jurisprudence and blaming an entire race for anything is un-American.
All of that is irrelevant now that the bills have died aborning. But they'll be back next session, and the activists and Black Caucus aren't likely to fail again.
