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The US House panel advanced a decades-long effort to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves. On Wednesday, the panel approved legislation that would create a commission to study the issue. Point to be noted that the House Judiciary Committee has acted on the legislation for the first time. The vote to advance the measure to the full House was 25-17. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he didn’t know when it would be scheduled for consideration on the House floor. The sponsor of the bill, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee said she hopes the full House could vote on it this summer. The legislation would establish a commission to examine slavery and discrimination in the United States from 1619 to the present. The commission would then recommend ways to educate Americans about its findings and appropriate remedies.

The bill is commonly referred to as HR 40, first introduced by the late Representative John Conyers in 1989. The 40 refers to the failed government effort to provide 40 acres of land to newly freed slaves as the Civil War drew to a close. Democratic chairman of the committee Jerrold Nadler said, “This legislation is long overdue. HR 40 was designed to start a national conversation about how to confront the brutal mistreatment of African Americans during chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and the enduring structural racism that remains endemic to our society today”. The House bill has no Republicans among its 176 co-sponsors and would need 60 votes in the evenly divided Senate to overcome a filibuster. Republicans on the Judiciary Committee were unanimous in voting against the measure.

The ranking Republican on the committee, Jim Jordan said the commission’s makeup would lead to a foregone conclusion in support of reparations. He said, “Spend $20 million for a commission that’s already decided to take money from people who were never involved in the evil of slavery and give it to people who were never subject to the evil of slavery. That’s what Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are doing”. Supporters said the bill is not about a check, but about developing a structured response to historical and ongoing wrongs. Other Republicans on the committee also spoke against the bill, including an African American legislator Burgess Owens. He said, “We believe in commanding respect, not digging or asking for it. We’re now electing a president of the United States, a black man after 40-years”.