The House Judiciary Committee will consider a bill that would create a federal commission to study reparations.
The House Judiciary Committee is preparing for a vote on reparations that has been 32 years in the making. Wednesday, the committee will mark up and vote on HR 40 — a bill sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) that would create a 13-person federal commission to study American slavery, its effects, and what the government might do to mitigate those effects. After completing its study, the commission would be required to issue recommendations on possible “forms of rehabilitation or restitution” — essentially, reparations — to Congress. Reparations, generally interpreted as financial compensation to descendants of enslaved people, have historically received little support. According to a July 2020 Washington Post/ABC News poll, reparations aren’t overwhelmingly supported by Democrats: 53 percent of Democrats approve of them. And there’s almost no support for reparations — just 6 percent — in the GOP. Generally, critics (including many GOP lawmakers) have argued reparations are prohibitively expensive, with Duke University economist William Darity Jr. and Artefactual founder Kirsten Mullen estimating they would cost the federal government between $10 trillion and $12 trillion. Other opponents claim they would force Americans with no history of benefiting from enslavement to pay for the moral crimes of others. Supporters argue the federal government would be capable of making such a large payment, and say this latter view ignores the benefits created by generational wealth and the negative effects of present-day systemic racism that has its roots in slavery. Specifically, advocates for HR 40 are promoting the idea of reparations as an important tool, not only to finally atone for the moral ills of slavery, but also to close current gaps between white and Black Americans in things like wealth and homeownership. For instance, the average white family is more than 10 times wealthier than an average Black family, and white non-college graduates have more wealth than Black college graduates, according an April 2020 report from the Brookings Institution on the need for reparations. As the Economic Policy Institute has explained, there is a similar gap between the wages of Black and white workers — making it extremely difficult for labor alone to close that wealth gap. Some policy experts and lawmakers see reparations as an effective way around this problem — and have for some time. The earliest version of HR 40 was first introduced in the House by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) in 1989, before the youngest current member of the House was even born. The Korean War veteran and civil rights icon brought his proposal back up for consideration every year until he retired in 2017. Now, Lee is leading the charge to push it through Congress. It is expected to face Republican opposition in committee, and — given that not all members of the slim Democratic House majority support the idea of reparations — it’s uncertain whether the bill will make it to a vote.
