A California lawmaker has unveiled plans for a ‘Genealogy Office’ to decide which residents are genuine descendants of slaves and could get life-changing benefits payouts.
Steven Bradford, a Democratic state Senator for LA County, proposed bill SB 1403 to create a controversial genealogy unit to ‘confirm reparations eligibility’ of applicants.
The state’s first-in-the-nation reparations task force last year decided that some residents should win $1.2 million payouts as compensation for injustices from the slavery era onwards.
But lawmakers have struggled to turn those plans into reality, and have advanced several bills to devise a working reparations scheme amid fears of spiralling costs in a cash-strapped state.
Bradford’s bill, which was amended this month, aims to solve the problem of working out who is in line for a payout.
Its planned genealogy team would ‘support potential reparations claimants by providing access to expert genealogical research to confirm reparations eligibility,’ says the bill.
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