Voters said that reparation payments are “unfair.”
QUICK FACTS:
- A poll from UC Berkeley co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times found that the majority of California voters oppose reparation payments for black Californians descended from slaves.
- According to the poll, 59% of Californians oppose the cash payments, whereas only 28% of California voters support the concept.
- Forty-four percent of those in opposition to the idea are “strongly” opposed.
- When given the prompt, “It’s unfair to ask today’s taxpayers to pay for wrongs committed in the past,” 60% of poll respondents agreed with the statement.
- The next-highest prompt, with 53% support, read, “It’s not fair to single out one group for reparations when other racial and religious groups have been wronged in the past.”
- Only 19% of poll respondents said the payments would “cost the state too much.”
- Forty-three percent of Democrats supported cash reparations, whereas only 5% of Republicans favored the proposal.
- Forty-two percent of Democrats opposed cash reparations, compared to 91% of Republicans.
- Among Independents or those with no party preference, 63% oppose cash reparations and 24% support the proposal.
- According to poll director Mark DiCamillo, “The idea of cash reparations is really what’s being strongly opposed.” He noted that “there could be other solutions that could be much more warmly received.”
CALIFORNIA’S REPARATIONS TASK FORCE:
- California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) created California’s Reparations Task Force in 2020.
- The group has called for payments to slave descendants based on health and housing disparities as well as ending the death penalty, giving voting rights to those in prison, and administering rent caps.
- Newsom told Fox News host Sean Hannity in June that reparations do not “have to be in the frame of writing a check; reparations come in many different forms. But one cannot deny these historical facts, and I really believe very strongly we have to come to grips with what’s happened.”
- The Los Angeles Times reported that the task force suggested $13,619 a year be given to individuals for each year of California residency to combat health disparities.
- The task force also suggested eligible reparations recipients receive $2,352 for each year of California residency during the war on drugs from 1971 to 2020.
BACKGROUND:
- Residents of Evanston, Illinois, were the first in the United States to receive reparations payments.
- The payments for alleged discrimination and limited access to housing are being issued from a $10 million reparations package over the next ten years.
- Marijuana and real-estate transfer taxes are supposed to be the source of the reparations payment, although the marijuana sales tax revenue decreased after a second dispensary’s opening was delayed.
- According to the head of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University, Justin Hansford, the reparations payment plan is “a test run for the whole country.”
