Harris backed reparations bill in Senate but has been silent during White House bid

Vice President Harris as a senator representing California backed legislation in 2019 that would have established a federal commission to study proposals for slavery reparations, but she has been silent on the topic since announcing her campaign for the White House.

Harris backed the Senate companion to H.R. 40, a bill initially introduced in 1989 by former Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) that has been reintroduced in every Congress since.

When Conyers died, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) picked up the torch to carry the legislation forward.

“I think that the word, the term reparations, it means different things to different people,” Harris said in a 2019 interview with NPR on the topic. “But what I mean by it is that we need to study the effects of generations of discrimination and institutional racism and determine what can be done, in terms of intervention, to correct course.”

When asked about the vice president’s views on reparations in an interview with The Hill’s "The Switch Up" podcast, Jasmine Harris, Black media director for the vice president's campaign, pivoted to what she said was Harris's focus on ensuring hardworking Americans across the board have the ability to move forward. 

“I think mostly what’s being considered right now is just making sure, like I said, that we’re evening the playing field across the board, and making sure that all Americans, that hardworking Americans across the board, have the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead,” Harris said.

“And so the vice president and those that she will bring up with her to help her run this administration will, you know, work every angle possible to make sure that hardworking Americans have things a little bit easier because we know the costs are too high.”

H.R. 40, officially known as the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, would establish a federal commission to study not only the legacy of slavery, but the ongoing harm of that legacy. 

The commission would collect evidence of slavery in the United States and study the role that the federal and state governments played in supporting the institution of slavery. It would also analyze discriminatory laws against freed African slaves and their descendants and recommend ways the government could remedy the effects of both slavery and discrimination on African Americans — including through a formal apology and reparations.

Though the legislation has been introduced in every Congress since 1989, it first came to a floor vote on April 14, 2021.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) sponsored the bill in the Senate with the support of 19 Democratic co-sponsors and one independent co-sponsor. 

In 2021, the act had 196 House co-sponsors — all Democrats. Jackson Lee reintroduced the bill in 2023, this time with 130 Democratic co-sponsors. 

“Slavery is America’s original sin, and this country has yet to atone for the atrocities visited upon generations of enslaved Africans and their descendants,” Jackson Lee wrote in 2020. “H.R. 40 is intended to create the framework for a national discussion on the enduring impact of slavery and its complex legacy to begin that necessary process of atonement.”

Jackson Lee died in July, and the status of the legislation is unclear going forward.

Fifty-seven percent of Black Americans are impacted by the legacy of slavery, according to Pew Research Center, but support for reparations varies widely by race. 

While 77 percent of Black Americans say descendants of those enslaved in the U.S. should be repaid in some way, only 18 percent of white Americans say the same.

Still, since the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, the push for reparations has made gains around the nation. 

In October 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) created the nation’s first ever task force to study and recommend reparations for slavery. In January of this year, the California Legislative Black Caucus announced 14 reparations bills to implement policies outlined in the task force’s report from 2023. 

In June, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order to create a similar task force focused on reparations for the city’s Black residents.

But in 2019, former President Trump told The Hill he didn’t see reparations happening at the federal level.

“I think it’s a very unusual thing,” Trump said of the possibility of reparations. “You have a lot of — it’s been a very interesting debate. I don’t see it happening, no.”

The White House in 2021 said President Biden supported the idea of studying the issue.

“He certainly would support a study of reparations,” former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during a briefing in February 2021. “He understands we don’t need a study to take action right now on systemic racism, so he wants to take actions within his own government in the meantime.”