California Lawmakers Pass Bill to Create Task Force For Slavery Reparations

Our pals at Fox News have the latest on this story:

State senators in California overwhelmingly supported setting up a task force to study potential reparations for slavery in a bipartisan vote Saturday.

The panel would study the effects slavery had on California and recommend to the legislature no later than 2023 what type of compensation would be appropriate, how it might be dispersed and who could be eligible to receive it.

The task force could also recommend other forms of redress besides money.

The 33-3 Senate vote came the same weekend as the 57th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and as protests against racial injustice continued across the country.

“Let's be clear: Chattel slavery, both in California and across our nation, birthed a legacy of racial harm and inequity that continues to impact the conditions of Black life in California,” state Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, said, citing higher rates of incarceration, homelessness and unemployment for African-Americans.

The proposal, AB-3121, titled “Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,” would create the nine-member commission. Following Saturday's Senate vote, the measure returns to the Assembly for a final vote before lawmakers adjourn for the year Monday, FOX 11 in Los Angeles reported.

This seems like just another political stunt coordinated by Democrats.

If they care so much about reparations, maybe they should open their own wallets and start handing out cash...

There is no single group who is responsible for slavery, and most Americans today have no conection to slavery.

America is now a multi-ethnic country, and encouraging the idea that African Americans are still victims is a dangerous move, and one that Democrats have already weaponized for decades.

As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel pointed out just last year, it would also be very difficult to determine just who would recieve such reparations.

Here's what McConnel had to say last year via NBC:

Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that he opposed reparations for descendants of American slaves, arguing it would be hard to figure out who to compensate.

"I don't think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago when none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea," the Kentucky Republican told reporters. "We've tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We've elected an African American president."

McConnell comments came the day before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is scheduled to hold a hearing on the topic for the first time in over a decade. Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose 2014 essay in The Atlantic, "The Case for Reparations," pushed the issue back into the national dialogue, and actor Danny Glover are slated to testify.

The reparations debate has also become part of the 2020 presidential race. Several Democratic candidates have either come out in favor of reparations or at least said the issue should be studied to figure out how to compensate the descendants of slaves.

But McConnell said "it would be pretty hard to figure out who to compensate."