(Headline USA) California‘s reparations task force is set to wrap up its ‘work’ Saturday, voting on policy recommendations it will give to the state.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a former Democratic assemblywoman, authored legislation in 2020 creating the task force.
The goal was to study proposals for how California can offer recompense for harms perpetuated against descendants of enslaved people, according to the bill.
The nine-member committee, which first convened nearly two years ago, is expected to give final approval at a meeting in Oakland to a hefty list of ambitious proposals that will then be in the hands of state lawmakers.
The recommendations range from the creation of a new agency to provide services to descendants of enslaved people to tailored calculations of what the state owes residents for decades of harms such as overpolicing and housing discrimination.
Sober minded people, with an eye on the budget, suggest that these proposals are dead on arrival.
“There’s no way in the world that many of these recommendations are going to get through because of the inflationary impact,” said Roy L. Brooks, a professor and reparations scholar at the University of San Diego School of Law.
Documents outlining recommendations to the task force by economists previously showed the state could owe upwards of $800 billion, or more than 2.5 times its annual budget.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
