A panel of US lawmakers has advanced a decades-long effort to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves by approving legislation that would create a commission to study the issue.
After an impassioned debate, the House judiciary committee voted by 25-17 to advance the bill late on Wednesday, marking the first time that it has acted on the legislation.
The bill will now be considered by the House and Senate but prospects for final passage remain poor in a closely divided Congress.
The legislation would establish a commission to examine slavery and discrimination in the United States from 1619 to the present. The commission would then recommend ways to educate Americans about its findings and appropriate remedies, including how the government would offer a formal apology and what form of compensation should be awarded.
The bill, commonly referred to as HR 40, was first introduced by John Conyers, a Michigan representative in 1989. The 40 refers to the failed government effort to provide 40 acres (16 hectares) of land to newly freed slaves as the Civil War drew to a close.
“This legislation is long overdue,” said Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the committee. “HR 40 is intended to begin a national conversation about how to confront the brutal mistreatment of African Americans during chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation and the enduring structural racism that remains endemic to our society today.”
The momentum supporters have been able to generate for the bill follows the biggest reckoning on racism in a generation in the wake of George Floyd’s death while in police custody.
But the House bill has no Republicans among its 176 co-sponsors and would need 60 votes in the evenly divided Senate to overcome a filibuster. Republicans on the judiciary committee were unanimous in voting against the measure.
Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the committee, said the commission’s makeup would lead to a foregone conclusion in support of reparations.
“Spend $20m for a commission that’s already decided to take money from people who were never involved in the evil of slavery and give it to people who were never subject to the evil of slavery. That’s what Democrats on the judiciary committee are doing,” Jordan said.
Supporters said the bill is not about a check, but about developing a structured response to historical and ongoing wrongs.
“I ask my friends on the other side of the aisle, do not ignore the pain, the history and the reasonableness of this commission,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas.
Other Republicans on the committee also spoke against the bill, including Burgess Owens, an African American lawmaker from Utah, who said he grew up in the deep south where “we believe in commanding respect, not digging or asking for it”.
But Democrats said the country’s history was full of government-sponsored actions that have discriminated against African Americans well after slavery ended. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, said the Federal Housing Administration at one time refused to insure mortgages in Black neighborhoods while some states prevented Black army veterans from participating in the benefits of the GI Bill.
“This notion of, like, I wasn’t a slave owner. I’ve got nothing to do with it misses the point,” Cicilline said. “It’s about our country’s responsibility, to remedy this wrong and to respond to it in a thoughtful way. And this commission is our opportunity to do that.”
Last month, the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, became the first US city to make reparations available to its Black residents for past discrimination and the lingering effects of slavery. The money will come from the sale of recreational marijuana and qualifying households would receive $25,000 for home repairs, down payments on property, and interest or late penalties on property in the city.
Polling has found longstanding resistance in the US to reparations to descendants of slaves, divided along racial lines.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
