Below is my column in The Hill on the recommendations for reparations by two appointed bodies in California. After years of declaring this a moral imperative, the bill has come due for leaders like Gov. Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed. The collective demand is for trillions in California alone with additional trillions demanded from Congress in a national reparations program. California Democrats will now have to render a decision on committing real money on reparations to show that this was not mere virtue signaling. That decision could be coming soon.
Here is the column:
A long-awaited meeting of San Francisco’s board of supervisors was set this week to discuss the recommendation of its African American Reparations Advisory Committee to give $5 million to each eligible Black resident as reparations. The meeting was postponed, but the city and the state soon must make a decision on a bill that has come due for Democratic politicians.
The city council voted unanimously to create the reparations committee in 2020. Even though California was a free state without slavery before the Civil War, the committee’s “particular focus has been the era of urban renewal, perhaps the most significant example of how the City and County of San Francisco as an institution played a role in undermining Black wealth and actively displacing the city’s Black population.” That could be viewed as only a partial payment for race-related injuries.
In the meantime, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) created his own Reparations Task Force, which just reached its own recommendations for $223,000 per person. Others have insisted the figure should be $350,000 for individuals and another $250,000 for Black-owned businesses. One California politician insisted the figure needs to be $800,000 per person, reflecting the average cost of a home in the state.
As these numbers rise, so do the calls for payments in both politics and the media. Even Disney has gotten into the act with a controversial children’s episode in which cartoon children demand reparations.
Notably, California’s law expressly states that this money should not be treated as compensation for federal reparations. That raises the question of whether a resident could receive $5 million from San Francisco, $223,000 from the state, and additional payments from the federal government.
Some congressional Democrats have pushed for similar federal reparations and passed a bill out of the House Judiciary Committee in 2021 that failed to receive a floor vote. BET founder Robert Johnson has called for $14 trillion in federal reparations.
These reparations measures have a remarkable range of focus, from slavery to housing discrimination to wealth inequities. In California, there was a sharp disagreement on the purpose, with many advocates arguing that it was wrong to limit the money to descendants of slaves. Task force member Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D–Los Angeles) insisted that, “at the end of the day, people who are prejudiced against us are prejudiced against all of us.”
Ultimately, advocates like Jones-Sawyer lost a close vote on extending state reparations to all Black Americans. The state task force voted to limit it to descendants of slaves; there are almost 3 million potentially eligible Californians.
The two reparation bodies were tasked with calculating reparation awards — and both the city and the state will now be pressed to make good on their commitments.
The costs of such policies — condemned by critics as virtue-signaling — are being faced by some other jurisdictions as well. For example, New York and numerous other cities have declared themselves to be “sanctuaries” for undocumented immigrants yet, in recent months, have protested increasing transfers of such immigrants to their jurisdiction.
The cost of California’s statewide reparations is estimated to be $569 billion. The state’s annual budget is roughly half that amount, at $268 billion. Making things even more difficult, the state faces a $22.5 billion deficit and is seeking spending cuts to cover the shortfall.
This may not be a bill that can be politically postponed, given past statements by the governor and other Democratic politicians.
That leads to the question of such programs’ constitutionality. Even after the political approval of payments, it is not clear that this money will ever be paid.
Under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, race-based classifications trigger strict scrutiny requiring a showing of both a “compelling state interest” and “narrowly tailored” means. In City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989), the Supreme Court struck down a set-aside for minority businesses due to a lack of evidence of specific injuries. The court ruled that general past discrimination was not enough and added that “the dream of a Nation of equal citizens in a society where race is irrelevant to personal opportunity and achievement would be lost in a mosaic of shifting preferences based on inherently unmeasurable claims of past wrongs.”
Then-Justice John Paul Stevens added his liberal voice against such programs, noting that Richmond’s law “encompasses persons who have never been in business in Richmond as well as minority contractors who may have been guilty of discriminating against members of other minority groups.”
The reparations given in 1988 to Japanese Americans who survived World War II internment camps posed an easier issue, since the recipients were directly injured by the government and the money was meant to compensate them for their injuries.
The decision to narrow programs like focusing on the descendants of slaves or on housing deprivations will certainly be better for constitutional review than a general reparations measure. However, even liberal scholars like Erwin Chemerinsky seem to concede that these reparation measures would face series legal headwinds in the courts. The likely legal challenges are not often considered in discussions of reparations — but they could create a highly combustible situation, if large reparations guarantees were suddenly negated.
That legal fight, however, must await a moment of truth for California legislators.
Democratic politicians have insisted for years that reparations are essential to address systemic racism. But politicians like Gov. Newsom now face demands to put their money where their mouths have been. The years of calls for reparations have created a greater expectation, even an urgency. One well-known California activist declared: “It’s a debt that’s owed, we worked for free. We’re not asking; we’re telling you.”
That expectation is reflected in recent polling, showing a massive shift in the Black community on the question: 77 percent of Black Americans now support reparations — but, overall, nearly seven-in-ten (68 percent) of all respondents oppose such payments.
Thus, after defining reparations as a moral obligation, politicians may find it difficult to say this is an inopportune moment.
For Newsom and for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, the bill is now due.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
Actually, this could be an interesting social experiment.
How will the recipients use the money? Or will there be strings attached, dictating what they can use the money for? Say they get $800,000 as noted ” reflecting the average cost of a home in the state.” and decide they can get a similar home in, say Texas, for $250,000 and use the rest of the money for whatever they feel like.
Would this money be tax exempt? Or by demanding Federal funds, the state of CA can then tax it for their own uses/cover their deficit?
What would be the fall out from other minority groups?
As we have seen what happens when the government injects monies into the population (see COVID stimulus), another bout of inflation?
UpstateFarmer: Another interesting question: will this money finally put an end to the non-stop blather about white supremacy, systemic racism, etc? My guess is that this will be just the first installment. This is blackmail money. Democrats think they can pay off their voters, but blackmailers never stop.
The City of Los Angeles gave Rodney King $5 million and he died broke.
I used to think the Texit guys were kind of loony, but I’m taking a whole new look at a Lone Star Republic.
Cionnath……….I’m mighty pleased to hear that 🙂
Dear Prof Turley,
Finally, some good news. Fools and their money are soon parted.
I was born a poor black man, then demoted to illiterate white Hillbilly, and I donate all my reparations to the red skin Indians of North America. Blood brothers.
*disclaimer: grandma was a 1/4 Cherokee .. . I’ve got it all!
Insanity run amok. I happen to be descendants of those Irish who came to the US and all lived in free states. I am also descendants of those Scottish who were driven from Scotland and settled in North Carolina so some of us lived in slave states. It was no great boon to any of the subsequent generations since most had land but little to no money and lived in subsistence farming up till the 1960’s. Of course the South remained in abject poverty from the Civil war on and it only grew worse with the Great Depression. No Marshal plan for the South. Only started to recover in World War 2. The South had no industry like the East , Midwest or West Coast so the Army and Navy were heavily southern since they had virtually no war industry deferments. Georgia had almost 14 % of adults in the service in WW2 , which was the highest in the nation. The South paid it’s due in devastation, poverty, and no opportunity and still supplied the largest amount of military right up until the Biden purges of the last 2+ years.
Almost everyone in this country had prior generations of being kicked in the mouth by others and laid low by circumstance. But here we still are. If you want division then Reparations are a great way to insure it.
“Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute”, because that is what it is.
I expect that all politicians know that reparations will not be approved by the courts. This leaves them in the position where they can claim that they tried, but cynically knew in advance that they would never have to deliver on anything. All it does is further divide society as now you have a group of people who believed the politicians and the lack of reparations becomes a new grievance, filled with anger, disappointment and even greater hostility to other racial groups.
It seems like Democrats understand everything but how real people think.
Shoshin: A very good comment. thank you.
What would serve those cynical Dems right would be if the reparations issue were to reach SCOTUS and they pulled a Dobbs on them and said it is a states rights issue. Blue states would then be stuck with either pay up or face the consequences of denying reparations they’ve been promising while red states would not face the same voter uprising. If blues states decide to pay you will see a sudden mass exodus from blue states to red and vice versa depending mostly on the race of each. We would eventually end up with an apartheid by choice by state situation with some blue states evolving into black states and red states becoming white states. Dems will quickly become a permanent minority party. Then just let the chips fall where they may. I think after a generation citizens of those newly black states will realize they’ve been hoodwinked by the Dems and are stuck on a plantation of their own making. One only need look at the situation in South Africa to see what the result will be.
GET IN LINE – GET TO THE BACK OF THE LINE
The Native American Indians would like you to PAY UP Reparations for the Theft of: Our Way of Life, Culture, and Our Environment.
DO NOT PAY US IN WAMPUM U.S. FIAT DOLLARS, WE want Our Land Back, We want Our Lakes and Streams restored, We want Our Wildlife Habits restored, We want your Nuclear and Coal Plants Removed, … WE WANT IT ALL BACK.
Your Zionism and Capitalist Bulls_#t has F_#ked it all up.
PAY UP OR GO BACK FROM WHERE YOU CAME.
If you can’t provide those “Reparations’, Then get the F_#K OUT or DIE!
This is a joke, right?
You got your casinos, so shut your pie hole.
Descendants of whicjh slaves?
Because I am sure there are plenty of people in California of Gaelic, Latino, or Slavic descent whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans.
And then there is Mongolia.
How many had decedents whom were slaves when Genghis Khan ruled as much land mass as the Romans did.
Are we to expect Mongolia to pay reparations?
How far back in history do we go?
Michael T………and don’t forget the Jews!
Their ancestors were enslaved by the Egyptians.
Of course, Egypt circa 1400 B.C. imported slaves from so many regions, not just Canaan.
The Romans, Greeks, Arabs and Africans enslaved everyone they could get their hands on. It was common and legal. Hebrews, Muslims and Christians all had slaves, and slaves came in every color and ethnicity. Nobody is wringing their hands over what was a very common historical practice except American liberals.
No one mentioning India’s caste system?
This is where the insanity of social justice leads. The attempt to right some vague wrong from the past creates its own new wrong and fosters grudges and hatred. The end game of social justice is social anarchy.
If the main reason for the reparations is urban renewal, why are they limited to the descendants of slaves?
pudnhead…………Social “justice” has become social “Just us”.
That group is so self-centered!
Can someone explain to me how a state with a 22 billion dollar deficit can pass a bill to spend over 500 billion for one segment of their populace?
Your math is so racist.
hullbobby: The only explanation needed: this is California.
Statistics show that of all the white ethnic groups, Irish-Americans have the lowest educational and financial achievement. The difference is attributed to their history in the United States. Large numbers of Irishmen came here to escape the famine, and were then immediately drafted into the Union Army to fight the Civil War. Those who survived were greeted with signs, “No Irish Need Apply;” “No Irish, No Dogs.” This legal discrimination in housing and employment limited wealth creation for generations. Will there be reparations for Irish-Americans? Of course not. But they’ve been moving away from the Democratic Party in ever increasing numbers anyway, as have Hispanics. All the Democrats can do at this point is to reward people who are going to vote for them anyway, and flood the U.S. with new refugees to entice with hand-outs in exchange for votes.
how about reparations for the dogs?
Sure, give all the Irish Setters a ham bone. Let California pay for it.
I’m sure that race relations will be much improved when the poor white guy, whose family never owned slaves, sees his poor black neighbor, get a check for $5,000,000 or $250,000, or both for never having been a slave. I am sure that there will be no bitterness that will accrue when the white poor remain poor as the black poor become rich for doing nothing.
PS. I’m sure that the Hispanic and Asian communities will also be as thrilled as white people with reparations for only black people. Not to mention black people that have immigrated here over the last 100 years that possibly won’t be included in the theft…er, I mean program.
HullBobby,
As I have mentioned in the past, I am not white.
But I also have no expectations of reparations for anything. I do not owe anyone anything, and nor do they owe me. Well, maybe the government come tax season.
The only thing I am entitled to is getting out of bed in the morning.
Upstate– other than being non-white I do not know (or care to know) your race. The intelligence reflected in your comments remind me of the many black people I have represented through the years who have, through hard work and God-given talent, reached levels of success of which any of us would be proud. Although I did not care much for George Bush, Jr., one quote attributed to him is, I think, especially true of “liberals” and that is all of their ideas about and programs for blacks reflect “the bigotry of soft expectations.” My black clients are offended by people who project an attitude that expects less of them simply because they are black. And, there is no doubt that the idea of reparations spits in the face of Martin Luther King, Jr. because it all is based on the color of one’s skin with no thought given to the content of one’s character.
honestlawyermostly,
Well, thank you very much for you kind words and your insight.
UpstateFarmer,
The great thing for all of us citizens is we can rest comfortably knowing Jesus is in complete control of everything in heaven & on earth,
& that around 25-33% of those in govt leaders & major corporate leaders are not just rayyist, anti-straight or anti-homo, etc., as they just hate all of us & want to injure, torture & k*ll 95-99% of us all because they hate themself for ever being born, they’re supporting Lucifer & his 33% of the fallen Angles on earth that revolted against God.
I think we should strive to be decent Human Supremacist Nationalist, no matter skin tone & consider ourselves lucky the ladies still give us a 2nd glance. 😉 ( lol, the ladies were out in force today in town, looking great & with their war paint on . … run, flee for your life! lol)
Oky1…..you’re so funny! Hope you and your wife are well.
There are many times when I miss Oklahoma. I was bapfized in Duncan at age 7.
Can’t see the dang keyboard……”Baptized”!
A Warm Howdy Cindy,
I haven’t been to Duncan, but my dad in the earlier 70’s took a couple of his crews to Duncan under some insurance companies to put their part of it back together after a nasty tornado, he left me at the base camp.
Best I can recall I’ve been baptized 4 or 5 groups have baptized me including by my dad. It seems each time they hold my head under water longer & longer each time, like they’re hoping it takes this time. lol. Short of the long, it did take one day. I think maybe we each have to find & know for sure ourselves?
My wife/family are managing the everyday troubles after taking a couple of breaths & a time out as I’m sure you & yours are.
I’ve been wanting this opportunity to tell you & honestlawyermostly I’m so proud you two having honored yourselves & you words you pledged in front of Jesus & yourselves now 50 years.
I don’t know if you guys had a prenup but we didn’t & manged to learn how to argue & stay withing the contract. We do & we did knock on the bible. LOL;) Anyway, best of luck Kids.
I’ve wonder what I could give as a gift. I hope these links are well received as they are meant to be.
Multiple Post;)
Jerry Jeff Walker Pick Up Truck Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWK8GgWD4uA
Jerry Jeff Walker – Desperados
If it gets dry just move on 3-4 minutes:
“JERRY JEFF WALKER FOREVER” a celebration of life, Live with Todd Snider 12pm CT 10/24/2020.
Todd Snider
17.7K subscribers
73,341 views Streamed live on Oct 24, 2020
October 24, 2020 – Todd Snider – “JERRY JEFF WALKER FOREVER” a celebration of life, The Purple Building, East Nashville, TN
The Stranger (He Was The Kind) *
Gettin’ By
Stoney
Mr. Bojangles
Gypsy Songman
I Make Money
LA Freeway
Redneck Mother
London Homesick Blues
Roll on Down the Road
Honky Tonk Music
Derby Day
Railroad Lady
We Were Kinda Crazy Then
Jaded Lover
Charlie Dunn
Pass It On
Leavin’ Texas
Contrary TO Ordinary
Desperados Waiting for a Train
My Old Man
Driftin’ Way Of Life *
Hill Country Rain *
Laying My Life On The Line*
* on piano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzuuI4ErIxQ
*************
Last,
I like hearing multiple opinions, if you two kids have the time check these guys out, they keep me smiling on legal BS. I signed up, follow them, along with Prof Turley, others. 🙂
https://vivabarneslaw.locals.com/upost/3520317/live
Yes, indeed. The era of racial harmony is within our grasp. And it might last about one second before everything explodes.
pudnhead………unfortunately, so true.
Only half of the country wants racial harmony, The other half wants racial revenge.
No need to read the article. The way the federal government throws money around is the important thing to note. Oh, they want to pay reparations? Name me a handful of BIG GOVERNMENT DEMS who doesn’t want that. So magically the federal government will step up to the plate and shovel money into California’s coffers. Viola! Done deal.
It makes me wonder if in San Francisco someday the Asian community will need to be paid reparations for having to pay reparations to descendants of slaves.
Workaround: Let Mexico annex California so payments will be they’re responsibility.
It is hard to believe that adults would come up with such nonsense to pay lots of money to any single race, much less one for whom federal, state and local governments have mandated special privileges in education, employment and a host of other areas for more than fifty years. Has it not been enough to put blacks at the front of the line, regardless of merit, at the expense of whites, Asians and others who have worked hard to achieve? And these special privileges have been accelerated with the new mandate of governments and private entities for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, an idea designed intentionally to exclude whites and Asians, again regardless of merit. I think it is telling that those who are demanding reparations are willing to bankrupt their states, states in which they have been given these special privileges, at the expense of all of the other residents. If, in fact, 77% of the black community believes they should be paid a lot of money simply for being black, even if it means bringing economic ruin on their own states, I feel sorry for them… and us.
This whole thing might be a ploy by right-wingers for use in campaign commercials.
Why did Democrats fall for it?
the fact that California never had slavery is an easty answer to the question on whether the state owes reparations to people on the basis of being descended from slaves.
honestlawyermostly: When those reparations committees are packed with blacks, how could the outcome be any different? These delusional decisions simply reflect that the Democratic party is in trouble — its base is deserting it and it needs more draconian ways to keep voters. Paying people to vote for you is the easy way out. My guess is that these payments will be dragged out over years, so blacks will have to keep voting for Democrats to get their next payment. That’s exactly how the welfare system (another Democratic trap) works.
“It is hard to believe that adults would come up with such nonsense to pay lots of money to any single race”
It’s such a lame brained idea that only a Democrat pelican could support such a thing. I don’t think any leftist blogger on this list would care to defend such insanity.
Newsom and folks like him will not be putting “their money where their mouth is….” but will be taking everyone’s money including the few who will be receiving direct benefit.
This is just another way of Democrats buying the Black Vote….and is plain ridiculous.
I see no offer to pay the families of the Soldiers who died and were maimed securing the Slave’s freedom…..what about them?
Then there is the matter of the Native Americans who were forcibly removed from their Lands by a benevolent Federal Government.
We. have a whole generation of folks that grew up during the Great Depression and then fought WWII….are they due some government cash?
Life is not fair.
The time to pay reparations was when it would have gone to those held in the bonds of slavery were freed…..not to their descendants living today over two Centuries later.
Far better we ask the current members of this new favored minority group what they have done during those two Centuries to better themselves.
Non-Slaves have come to this Country through Ellis Island with just the clothes on their backs and got on with life.
What is different about them that excludes them from being considered for such a hand out?
There are many like. me….descendants of poor families who started with nothing and had some success in life without thinking I am owed anything by the government or others.
Yet….folks like me are just the bulge in the Python’s stomach as we pay our taxes, pay for our permits, licenses, and all the many ways Government has to take money from us and give away to others.
This just proves it in Black and White….and confirms how far left the Democrat Party has gone…..and why their agenda must be dealt with in finality……and this Nation be rid of it once and for all.
I believe that California is anticipating, indeed expecting, that reparation payments will be paid by the Federal Government. Their Mastercard is already maxed out. Thank you, Jonathan, for an excellent article.
When a number is arrived at, are they going to subtract Affirmative Action Money? The rest of social safety spending that landed disproportionately in the laps of Blacks
There were free States and slave States.
Explain to me were the federal responsibility enters the discussion.
And California was always a free state.
But not anymore.
If they pass this nonsense people are going to drag them into the United States Supreme court and beat the c-r-a-p out of them with the United States Constitution and those that are sick and tired of these California government totalitarians will pack up and leave California for states that aren’t run by bithering woke idiots.
P.S. I suspect that the laws won’t be passed.
That should be the case, but who knows? The crazies won’t back down and will try to take us all down with them.
Steve Witherspoon: And if the US Supreme Court has to make the final decision — and we know what it will be — we’ll see an uprising that will make the Dobbs decision look like a Sunday picnic. The Democrats never think ahead to the consequences of their actions. They run strictly on impulse, and this time they’ve put themselves in a bind. They’ve built up expectations on one side and created such hostility on the other, that no matter which way this gets settled there will be rage.