On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion, 5-0, to advocate in support of Senate Bill 1050 to combat racially motivated eminent domain takings. Senate Bill 1050 was introduced by Senator Steven Bradford and co-authored by Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, and Assemblymember Corey Jackson.

The bill is part of the 2024 Reparations Priority Bill Package by the California Legislative Black Caucus introduced earlier this month.

In addition to SB 1050, the caucus announced more than a dozen bills ranging from policies that would expand access to education and training to a formal apology by the state for human rights violations and crimes against humanity against enslaved Africans and their descendants.

In 2020, California became the first state in the nation to create a state task force to study and develop reparations proposals for African Americans.

Senate Bill 1050 would establish a process for the State of California to review and investigate public complaints from people who claim their property was taken without just compensation. It would then restore the property to the aggrieved party or provide compensation for property taken due to racist or discriminatory motives.

Additionally, the bill would require the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency to create and update a database of state properties acquired as a result of those motives.

In 2023, the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans examined the ongoing and increasing harms experienced by Black Americans as a result of slavery and the State of California’s role in perpetuating these harms.

On June 29, 2023, the task force released a final report that included a recommendation for the California Legislature to take actions to restore property taken during race-based uses of eminent domain to its original owners or to provide another effective remedy, such as restitution or compensation. This recommendation became SB 1050.

“While we cannot change the past, we can act now in the present to right historic wrongs by identifying and returning land that was unjustly taken. People will not be able to litigate themselves out of historical real estate discrimination. It is the function of decades, if not centuries, of racially discriminatory acts, policies, and laws,” The motion begins.

“Continual changes in government policies are necessary to further promote racial equity and address the systemic barriers of structural racism. It is essential to ensure property owners’ rights and public welfare by providing fair compensation for any private land or property seizure under the authority of eminent domain. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors became the first government entity in the United States to return land that had been taken via racist eminent domain policy, but it should not be the last.”

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