New Reparations Bill Will Test Biden and Harris on Racial Justice
President Joe Biden supports the idea behind the bill. Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed it during her time in the Senate. But that might not be enough to get a proposal to study reparations for slavery to Biden’s desk this Congress.
Despite the enormity of the task behind the legislation known as H.R. 40 — named for the “40 acres and a mule” that has come to symbolize the post-Civil War government’s failure to help formerly enslaved people — the bill has new political momentum since its last introduction in 2019 when the GOP controlled the White House and Senate. The nationwide protests last summer following George Floyd’s killing have raised public awareness of racial injustice and kick-started a national conversation that advocates for a reparations dialogue see as valuable.
What no one knows yet is how committed the White House is to the specific House legislative vehicle, which has been introduced in every Congress for more than three decades and would establish a commission of experts to study direct payments to African Americans. The Senate introduced a companion bill for the first time during the 116th Congress, prompting a number of presidential candidates — including then-California Sen. Harris — to throw their support behind it.
