California lawmakers pass groundbreaking bill to redress racism, but hold off on appropriating funding to take action

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers this week passed a few of the most ambitious bills within the country aimed toward repairing a legacy of racist policies that created inequality for black people in the whole lot from housing to education to health care.

Neither bill would offer universal direct payments to African Americans. Instead, the state legislature approved proposals that might allow land restitution or compensation to families whose property was unjustly seized by the federal government and issued a proper apology for laws and practices that harmed blacks.

But lawmakers have omitted two bills that might create a fund and an agency to implement the cash, seen as key components of the trouble to take action. California Legislative Black Caucus Chairwoman Lori Wilson said Saturday that the Black Caucus had withdrawn the bills, adding that the proposals still needed work.

“We knew from the very beginning that this was going to be a tough fight. … And we also knew from the very beginning that this was going to be a multi-year effort,” Wilson told reporters.

Senator Steven Bradford, who authored the measures, said the bills weren’t passed out of fear that Gov. Gavin Newsom would veto them.

“We are at the finish line and we, as the Black Caucus, owe it to the descendants of slaves, to black Californians and black Americans to move this legislation forward,” Bradford said, urging his colleague to reconsider Saturday afternoon.

The Democratic governor has not commented on a lot of the bills, but a budget of $297.9 billion was signed in June, which included up to $12 million for reparations lawsBut the budget didn’t specify which proposals would receive the cash, and his administration has signaled opposition to a few of them. Newsom has until Sept. 30 to resolve whether to sign the bills into law.

Democratic Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who’s black, has called his bill to issue a proper apology for discrimination a “labor of love.” His uncle was amongst a bunch of black students who were escorted by federal troops past offended white mobs into Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, within the Nineteen Fifties, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that college segregation was unconstitutional. The students became generally known as the “ Nine Little Rock.”

“I think my grandmother, my grandfather, would be incredibly proud of what we’re going to do today,” Jones-Sawyer said before the vote on the laws passed. “Because that’s why they fought in 1957, so that I could — and we could — move our people forward.”

Newsom approved laws in 2020 to create the nation’s first task force to study reparations proposals. New York and Illinois have since followed suit with similar laws. The California group the ultimate report was published last yr with greater than 100 recommendations to lawmakers.

Newsom signed laws last month that requires school districts receiving state funding for a profession education program to collect data on the performance of participating students by race and gender. The bill, a part of repair package supported by the California Legislative Black Caucus, goals to help address student achievement problems.

Return of seized property

The state Senate has overwhelmingly approved a bill to return land or compensate families whose property was unfairly taken through racial discrimination using the law of eminent domain.

The topic has once more attracted attention in California when Los Angeles-area officials returned the beach property in 2022 to a black couple, a long time after it was taken from their ancestors.

The Newsome administration’s Department of Finance opposes the bill. The agency says the associated fee of implementing it’s unknown but could “range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to several million dollars per year, depending on the workload required to receive, review, and investigate applications.”

It’s not immediately clear how the initiative can be implemented, even when Newsom signs it into law after lawmakers withdrew an initiative to create an agency to implement it. The proposal would create a genealogy office to help black Californians research their family lines and confirm their eligibility for any reparations that develop into law.

Formal apology

California would take responsibility and formally apologize for its role in perpetuating segregation, economic inequality and discrimination against black Americans under one other bill approved by the Legislature.

The regulations require the Secretary of State to send a final copy of the apology to the National Archives, where it might probably be viewed by the general public.

The apology said the state “reaffirms its role in protecting the descendants of slaves and all black residents of California, as well as their civil, political and sociocultural rights.”

California American Freedmen Affairs Agency and Fund

Two rejected bills would have established an agency that might be liable for implementing reparations programs if passed in California.

According to the California Government Operations Agency, the prices of operating a reparations agency could range from $3 million to $5 million per yr.

Another proposal would create a fund for reparations programs, which might develop into law in California. The money can be used to address state policies that harmed Californians descended from enslaved blacks or free blacks living within the U.S. before the late nineteenth century.

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