While the legislative package is not seeking cash payments, it calls for multiple policy changes and for the return of property that was confiscated by eminent domain for race-based reasons by the government. The first-of-a-kind legislative package proposed reparations laws follow several years of research and recommendations provided last year in a 111-page report by a state reparations task force. “While many only associate direct cash payments with reparations, the true meaning of the word, to repair, involves much more,” said Assemblymember Lori Wilson, chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus. “We need a comprehensive approach to dismantling the legacy of slavery and systemic racism.” Factoring into the decision not to include cash payments is California’s massive $37.9 billion budget shortfall. “We started realizing with the budget environment we were going to have to do more systemic policy change to address systemic racism versus big budget asks because there just wasn’t the budget for it,” Wilson said. “Our priorities centered around policy changes or creating opportunities.” The closest the plan gets to monetary payouts is the transfer of property seized by the government to its original owners, or the family of the original owners. The bill, authored by State Sen. Steven Bradford, would “Restore property taken during raced-based uses of eminent domain to its original owners or provide another effective remedy where appropriate, such as restitution or compensation.” Bradford says the effort is long overdue. "Reparations is not charity, it's not a handout. It's not a gift. It is what was promised and what is owed. It's something that is 160 years overdue to African Americans who built this country. We wouldn't be the great nation that we are today if it wasn't for 400 years of free labor,” he said. A similar effort was successfully undertaken last year when the Los Angeles County Commission voted unanimously to return a beachfront property that was improperly seized form a black family nearly a century ago. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the proposed bills the California Legislative Black Caucus wants to pass this year include:California lawmakers have introduced a suite of bills aimed at providing reparations for descendants of blacks who were enslaved in the U.S. and for race-based discriminatory policies that followed for more than a century post emancipation.
