H.R. 40 spent near thirty years in Congress without creating a commission
Evidence
The establishment of a commission to study reparations is not a new idea. The CWRIC, which led to Japanese Americans receiving compensation under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, was created by congressional action. The next year, taking inspiration from the 1988 act, Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), introduced H.R. 40, a bill to create a commission to study reparations. He reintroduced the same bill every year for almost thirty years, until he retired in 2017. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) then picked up the baton, subsequently reintroducing H.R. 40. In 2019 it had twenty co-sponsors, including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA). That led to two congressional hearings in 2019 and 2021, but it did not lead to a congressionally approved commission. My plan for a commission is different. I propose that a presidential executive order, not Congress, create the commission. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 516
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: The precedent — CWRIC leading to the Civil Liberties Act — is the factual cornerstone for the whole feasibility argument; ties to earlier chapters’ discussion of Japanese-American redress.