D.C. City Council Stealthily Passes Bill To Create a ‘Reparations Task Force’ To Explore Giving Money to Black Residents

Washington, D.C., could soon join other cities exploring the idea of paying reparations to Black residents after the city council unanimously surreptitiously passed a bill – with an innocuous name – to create a reparations task force.  The bill still needs the signature of Mayor Muriel Bowser to become law. However, another challenge facing the council is ensuring the reparations law is not blocked by Congress, which has to approve legislation in the District. Perhaps that’s why the bill was given an anodyne name: the “Insurance Database Amendment Act.” The stealthily named legislation, passed on Tuesday, would create a nine-member commission to study the impact of slavery in the nation’s capital and whether any policies in the last 150-plus years contributed to racial disparities.  It also would create a record of financial documents from slaveholders, such as insurance policies taken out on slaves.  Members of the commission would be tasked with developing recommendations for a model of reparations and who would qualify for them. The money for the reparations would come from a mixture of city funds and private donations.  The bill was passed without much fanfare due to concerns about its uncertain future. While it was passed with unanimous...