Reparations bills pass California State Senate

Sen. Steve Bradford announced three pieces of legislation related to reparations have passed through the California State Senate on May 21.

“After two years of study by the California Reparations Task Force on the impact of slavery and institutional discrimination on African Americans in California,  we are now taking action. These three bills are critically important for setting up the framework for reparations,” Senator Bradford said. “I appreciate my Legislative colleagues who have directly faced this important issue and shown great courage by passing these historic pieces of legislation. I look forward to working with the members of the Assembly to similarly pass these bills so we can present them to Governor Newsom for his signature.”

In a statement released by Bradford’s office, the package of bills confronts the harms caused by both slavery and the discriminatory actions by state and local governments and establishes a way for people who lost property for racially motivated reasons to receive restitution.

SB 1403 is the foundation that would create the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency to administer all future reparations.

SB 1331 would establish an account in the state treasury for the purpose of funding reparations policies approved by the Legislature and the Governor.

SB 1050 would provide restitution for Californians who lost homes or had their land taken without fair compensation as a result of the racially-motivated use of eminent domain.

Bradford was an early supporter of righting the wrongs caused by eminent domain when he sponsored legislation in 2021 that allowed the County of Los Angeles to transfer land seized from Charles and Willa Bruce in Manhattan Beach in 1929.

“I am extremely proud to have authored Senate Bill 796 that allowed the County of LA to transfer the Bruce’s Beach land back to its rightful heirs, the great-grandsons of Charles and Willa Bruce. I commend Supervisors Janice Hahn and Holly Mitchell’s leadership in standing up to address racial prejudice and having the courage to right historical wrongdoing. The County’s plan will accomplish my legislation’s objective of rectifying the historic injustice that was done to the Bruce family,” said Bradford at the time.

The legislation was called the “framework” as a reparations model and became part of a national narrative about what is owed to Black people in America for past injustice and what Black people owe to one another in the larger quest for reparations.

Bradford’s bills now move to the Assembly for consideration.