Sen. Steven Bradford on California’s reparations task force

Senator Bradford, we are anticipating this report from you and your colleagues on this task force later next month. But I want to ask you, because this is back in the news this week, right out of the gate here, what is the likelihood that cash payments will be part of the outcome of your task force and its recommendations? Well, as far as the initial rollout of reparations and what that looks like, I doubt with this recent budget that cash payments will be part of it. Can it be in the future down the road? Yes. But as we stand today, based on the governor's may revise and, you know, the financial deficits that exist, $31 billion, the likelihood of adding something new like reparations payments. I wouldn't hold my breath for that. And this budget cycle, I can't predict what the 2025 looks like or going out beyond that. But as we look right now for the 2023-2024 budget cycle, the likelihood of payments will not be there.

And the governor talked about that in the May revise presentation and talked about a couple of the factors, you know, moving the tax deadline because of natural disasters in the state until October. Obviously, the gridlock in Washington right now. One of your colleagues proposed a bill last session extending the task force for another year. You have a bill right now that would give you an extension as well. You and your colleagues, do you think you could benefit for some more time to maybe address, you know, the whole cash part of this because it is something that is very sensitive and it is top of mind among folks right now? I think additional year would be helpful. And I just lean on my colleague Don Tamaki, who's the only non-African American on the task force but served on the Japanese-Americans reparations task force. And they had three years and they were only trying to address the harms of about 100,000 people.

Here we have only two years and we're trying to address the harm of millions of Californians. So I think a little bit more time would not only assist the legislature and the governor but help educate the public as a whole of what those expectations and what reparations could very well look like. Do you engage with the governor's office on this? I have discussed with the governor's office about this and so we want to make sure we do it right. And I think again, the extension of the task force just to be kind of like the guiding light, the roadmap of what we intend in this final report would be tremendously helpful. I mean, even in educating the legislature as a whole and having informational hearings and things of that nature that involve the legislature as legislation is shaped to put meat on the bone, so to speak, for reparations. What do you think the odds are of that happening? Of the extension? Yes. I hope it's beneficial.

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, you've got to have finite disappointment but infinite hope. So I have infinite hope that we'll get it done. Do you think that this has been complicated in a way this week, as I said in the first question of our conversation, that we were anticipating this report by your task force later this month but then the governor's office came out this week and made some comments that cash payments were off the table and then they sort of walked those back and said it was a misrepresentation of the comments? Did this complicate things this week? I don't think this complicated any more than what they heard from San Francisco and saying there should be $5 million and what we've heard from a variety of other subgroups looking at reparations and throwing out figures and attaching it to the task force. We've had to deflect and address all of that during this process. So it's just one more hurdle that we had to overcome to better explain and that's why I think having the task force have another year of being able to educate the public as a whole as to what the intents are, our tensions are I should say, and what reparations could truly look like. I think that's why I think that the task force, like apps and cash payment would be helpful.

All right, so I want to ask you about the outcome, not only as a member of this task force, not only as a state lawmaker, but as a black man. What is success to you? I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question.

I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question.

I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question.

I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think we have a few prisons here in the state of California making that land available to descendants of slavery.

We have ways to compensate people absent cash payments, so I want to set the table that if we don't get cash payments there are other ways to provide reparations to descendants of cattle slavery here in California. We will leave it there. Thanks for your interest in this issue.

News, Sacramento, FOX40, Stockton, Modesto, California