Bill Text: CA SB1331 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: The Fund for Reparations and Reparative Justice.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Introduced) 2024-04-17 - From committee: Do pass and re-refer to Com. on APPR. (Ayes 8. Noes 1.) (April 16). Re-referred to Com. on APPR. [SB1331 Detail]
Download: California-2023-SB1331-Amended.html
|
Amended
IN
Senate
April 03, 2024 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION
Senate Bill
No. 1331
| Introduced by Senator Bradford |
February 16, 2024 |
An act to add Chapter 6.1 (commencing with Section 6630) to Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code, relating to state government.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 1331, as amended, Bradford.
The Fund for Reparations and Restorative Reparative Justice.
Previously existing law established, until July 1, 2023, the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, with a Special Consideration for African Americans Who are Descendants of Persons Enslaved in the United States. Previously existing law required the Task Force to, among other things, identify, compile, and synthesize the relevant corpus of evidentiary documentation of the institution of slavery that existed within the United States and the colonies that became the United States, as specified, and to recommend appropriate remedies in consideration of the Task Force’s findings, as specified. Previously existing law required the Task Force to submit a written report of its findings and recommendations to the Legislature, as specified.
Existing law establishes the Special Fund for Economic
Uncertainties, and requires the Controller to make, among other transfers between that fund and the General Fund, a transfer from the General Fund to the Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties of the unencumbered balance in the General Fund at the end of each fiscal year. Existing law continuously appropriates moneys in the Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties to the Director of Finance for the purpose of allocating funds for disaster relief, as specified.
This bill would establish the Fund for Reparations and Restorative Reparative Justice in the State Treasury for the purpose of funding policies
approved by the Legislature and the Governor that indemnify
descendants of an African American descendants of a chattel enslaved person or descendants of a free Black person living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th century. The bill would require the Controller to transfer from the Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties to the Fund for Reparations and Restorative Reparative Justice an amount equal to 6% of transfers from the General Fund to the Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties, as specified. Upon appropriation, the bill would require the moneys in the Fund for Reparations and Restorative
Reparative Justice to be expended for the above-described purpose. The bill would authorize the fund to receive moneys from any other federal, state, or local grant, or from any private donation or grant, as specified.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: NOBill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
Chapter 6.1 (commencing with Section 6630) is added to Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code, to read:
CHAPTER
6.1. The Fund for Reparations and Restorative Reparative Justice
6630.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) California has begun the process of addressing its role in accommodating and facilitating slavery, perpetuating the vestiges of enslavement, propagating state-sanctioned discrimination, and tolerating persistent, systemic structures of discrimination against living African Americans across its systems of government at the local and state level.
(b) As a result of this historic and continued discrimination, African Americans in California, especially those whose lineage can be traced to an enslaved person, continue to suffer economic, educational, and health hardships that
have prevented them as a people from achieving equality.
(c) In order to maintain slavery, government actors adopted white supremacist beliefs and passed laws to create a racial hierarchy and control enslaved and free African Americans.
(d) After the end of slavery, although the Federal Constitution recognized African Americans as citizens on paper, the government failed to give them the full rights of citizenship and failed to protect them from widespread terror and violence.
(e) Along with a dereliction of the United States’ duty to protect its African American citizens, direct federal, state, and local government actions continued to enforce the racist lies created to justify slavery. These laws and government-supported
cultural beliefs have since formed the foundation of innumerable modern laws, policies, and practices across the nation.
(f) Even after the abolition of slavery, its badges and incidents remain embedded in the political, legal, health, financial, educational, cultural, environmental, social, and economic systems of the United States of America. Racist, casteist, untrue, and harmful stereotypes created to support slavery continue to physically and mentally harm African Americans today.
(g) Without a remedy specifically targeted to dismantle our country’s racist foundations and heal the injuries inflicted by colonial and American governments, the “badges and incidents of slavery” will continue to harm African Americans in almost all aspects of American life.
(h) The Legislature recognizes and accepts responsibility for all of the harms and atrocities committed by representatives of the state who promoted, facilitated, enforced, and permitted the institution of chattel slavery and its legacy of ongoing badges and incidents of slavery that form the systemic structures of discrimination.
(i) The Legislature intends that the benefits issued under this chapter be dedicated to policies or programs that indemnify descendants of an African American descendants of a chattel enslaved person or descendants of a free Black person living in the United States prior to the end of
the 19th century.
6631.
(a) There is hereby created in the State Treasury the Fund for Reparations and(b) The Controller shall transfer from the Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties to the Fund for Reparations and Restorative Reparative Justice an amount, as determined by the Department of Finance, equal to six percent of the transfers from the General Fund to the Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties, as specified in the annual Budget Act. Upon appropriation by the Legislature, the moneys in the fund shall be expended for the purpose described
in subdivision (a).
(c) The Fund for Reparations and Restorative Reparative Justice may receive moneys from any other federal, state, or local grant, or from any private donation or grant, for the purpose of this chapter.
