Reparations legislation has repeatedly failed to pass through Congress for over three decades.

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

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s reparations brief — establishes the legislative-history factual foundation that motivates Brown’s executive-order pivot. — connects to: Waiting for Congress on reparations legislation is futile because it never advances. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations: How Building a…, 518