How California Dems Are Finding Workarounds to Cash Payment Race Reparations

Experts say the proposals may be unconstitutional California state senator Steven Bradford (R) (Arturo Holmes/Getty Images) California Democrats are finding ways to make reparations to black descendants of slaves that don’t include direct cash payments, as voters overwhelmingly reject the idea of money handouts. Instead, they are moving ahead with ideas like subsidized property taxes and expedited business licenses—which experts say may violate constitutional guarantees of equal treatment. California’s emerging reparations package includes two contentious proposals that would single out reparations-eligible black Californians for special treatment: one would order all the state’s professional licensing bodies to expedite their applications, while another would subsidize their property taxes by up to $4,000. The package would create the “California American Freedman Affairs Agency“—a permanent state bureaucracy—to decide which Californians should receive reparations benefits and to make sure they are doled out. It would be funded through a separate proposal to siphon off budget reserves specifically for reparations. These bills, which lawmakers have been quietly pushing after California’s headline-nabbing reparations task force last June issued a 1,100 page report full of costly policy demands, have easily cleared committee vetting without substantive debate and appear to have the support to pass the legislature’s approval. They...