SACRAMENTO — In what could be its biggest and costliest recommendation to the state legislature besides monetary reparations, California’s reparations task force over the weekend decided it will propose the creation of a powerful Freedmen Affairs Agency.
The new state agency could be enormous, as task force Chair Kamilah Moore was determined to push for an entity that would provide new services to descendants of African American enslaved people. The proposed bureaucracy would also have oversight power to try to hold other agencies accountable for providing existing services in ways that are racially equitable.
“The scope of harm is large, so the scope of the solution should be as large,” Moore said as other task force members questioned whether the proposal was feasible during a more than hourlong discussion about the issue Saturday at the group’s meeting in Sacramento.
“We know the legislature is going to do what it wants [with the task force’s proposals],” Moore added. “Why shouldn’t we go as large as possible?”
After releasing an interim report last year, the task force must submit its second and final report — with its numerous and wide-ranging recommendations — to the state legislature by June 30. The task force has expressed that it understands the historical significance of its responsibility to be the first to study and recommend reparations at the state level, that it knows its actions are being watched and could be a model for the nation. The establishment of a California American Freedmen Affairs Agency (CAFAA), modeled after the short-lived Freedmen’s Bureau that was established by Congress to help freed enslaved people after the Civil War, would certainly be historic.
According to Moore’s proposal, CAFAA’s mission would be “to provide perpetual special consideration to descendants of American slaves,” including offering services and programs to the descendant community. She foresees the agency having a genealogy branch, a data and research branch, a general counsel, a chief financial officer, a communications office and much more.
Moore also included in her proposal branches within the CAFAA that would provide medical, legal, educational, housing and development services — which other task force members questioned as possibly duplicative because presumably, descendants are already receiving such services. In a compromise, the task force voted to propose an agency that would have the option of providing such services when necessary.
On Saturday, task force member Cheryl Grills reiterated her worry that a standalone agency would be “incredibly expensive, and could take money from other programs” that could help Black Californians.
At its January meeting in San Diego, the task force had previously decided to limit the scope of such an agency as Grills and other members raised their concerns, including about the cost of a new state bureaucracy. Existing California agencies’ budgets are billions of dollars each year. But Moore argued Saturday that the task force’s previous vote occurred before it had more information from experts and the public.
Brandon Greene, director of the racial and economic justice program at the ACLU of Northern California, was one such expert who told the task force Friday that “an office will assure that [the task force’s] ideas get brought to fruition.”
“The task force is set to sunset,” Greene added. “In its place must be something transformational.”
Chas Alamo, a principal fiscal and policy analyst for the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, on Friday explained the difference between what it would take to establish a new agency vs. an advisory or oversight board.
“New agency creation typically is initiated under the governor branch, but other options exist,” Alamo told the task force, adding that the governor could either submit a plan for an agency for independent review, or include plans for an agency in a budget proposal. Or an agency could be “legislatively implemented through two parallel paths, with a budget trailer bill that includes fiscal components,” Alamo said.
Meanwhile, without endorsing one or the other, Alamo said that creating a commission or oversight entity would require fewer state financial resources.
Moore also cited public sentiment to bolster her argument. Many commenters told the task force over its two-day meeting that they wanted an independent agency “with teeth,” not just a commission.
Monica Montgomery Steppe, another task force member, agreed.
“What we’re doing has never been done before,” she said. “I don’t want to push our recommendations into the system without the protection of an agency.”
In other task force business, the group has yet to answer some key questions, including eligibility related to residency. In addition, it has yet to finalize its recommendations for the dollar amounts for monetary reparations, as economic consultants said lack of data continues to make it tough for them to make calculations.
See: In the largest reparations push in U.S. history, there are 5 key questions still to be answered
The task force’s last few meetings will be in person instead of virtual, the group decided over the weekend. They will be March 29 and 30 in Sacramento, May 2 in Sacramento, and June 30 — during which it will release its report — at a location to be determined.
