Good Monday evening. This is Daniel Allott with The Hill's Top Opinions.
A San Francisco advisory committee recently recommended that the city give each Black resident $5 million in reparations — not for slavery, since California was a free state before the Civil War, but for the role the city and county played in "undermining Black wealth and actively displacing the city's Black population," writes law professor JONATHAN TURLEY.
The city's board of supervisors is preparing to consider the proposal, and its decision could have significant implications for governments at all levels, especially those where Democratic politicians have long demanded reparations.
Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, says that there doesn't seem to be much agreement about exactly what the reparations would be for — proposals range from slavery and the injustices of Jim Crow to housing discrimination and wealth inequities.
The costs could be prohibitive in many states. As Turley notes: "The cost of California's statewide reparations is estimated to be $569 billion. The state's annual budget is roughly half that amount, at $268 billion. Making things even more difficult, the state faces a $22.5 billion deficit and is seeking spending cuts to cover the shortfall."
Putting budget considerations aside, Turley delves into the constitutionality of racial reparations, noting that even many liberal scholars think such measures "would face series legal headwinds in the courts."
Nevertheless, polls show a significant majority of Black Americans now support reparations.
All this could be a big problem for Democratic politicians, who "have insisted for years that reparations are essential to address systemic racism. … After defining reparations as a moral obligation, politicians may find it difficult to say this is an inopportune moment."
Read Turley's column here.
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