Black Caucus Faces Continued Backlash Over Stalled Reparations Bills

By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff WriterBlack Californians and community advocates have expressed frustration with the California Legislative Black Caucus for failing to bring two significant reparations bills to a vote at the end of the legislative session last month.Three members of the caucus – assemblymembers Mia Bonta, Kevin McCarty, and Corey Jackson – faced an emotionally charged crowd during the State of Black California discussion hosted by the California Black Freedom Fund on Sept 14.Bonta explained that implementation issues with state agencies led to her decision not to advance Senate Bill 1403, one of two stalled bills advocates are upset about. The other, SB 1331, would have established a reparations fund within the state treasury.SB 1403 aimed to establish the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency to compensate Black Californians descended from enslaved people.“Right now, California has an implementation problem … and we always struggle with implementation,” Bonta told the crowd.Bonta explained that the lack of clarity about how the proposed agency would work made it too vague for her. “Without us having clarity and being very explicit … how the [agency] would interact with other agencies and what authority it would have is incomplete.”At one point, the emotionally...