Protesters push for action on reparations bills on final day of California Legislature
News Talk
Before the sun rose Saturday morning, Reggie Romain was on the road, traveling from Southern California with a group of demonstrators to Sacramento with a forceful request: “We got to get these bills,” he said, under the dome of the state Capitol.
Romain was referring to Senate Bills 1403 and 1331, which would create a new state agency to oversee reparations for Black Californians and a fund to help support those policies. The bills came out of two years of study by a first-in-the-nation state task force, which documented the harms committed against Black people in California and recommended ways to repair that damage.
But, as the measures were close to passing in the Legislature, they stalled in the California Assembly. That came after Gov. Gavin Newsom raised concerns about the bill creating the new agency and his administration proposed changes that would have scrapped it, The Sacramento Bee previously reported. Those suggestions were rejected by its author.
The final day to pass the bills this legislative session is Saturday and Romain wasn’t going to watch all the way from Riverside County, where he lives. He is a barber and canceled his appointments planned for the day, so he could...
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