Commentary

The recently released Full Final Report of the California Reparations Task Force has revealed nothing new, considering what I have reported previously in The Epoch Times. The basic problem all along remains: Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature cynically launched this initiative even though: a) the state of California never had slavery; b) there’s no money for reparations; c) no one could agree on who should get what.

However, let’s move beyond that and look at eight real reparations the state could give black Californians. In this increasingly diverse state, we need to stop obsessing resentfully at the past and instead look to build a prosperous common future. Reparations should be seen not in a direct monetary sense, but that of “repairing” policies to produce positive future results.

8 Reforms for Black Californians

1. Institute universal school vouchers

Follow the Goldwater Institute’s model for Arizona, which has spread to other states, most recently Florida. It gives a K-12 school voucher to any student whose parents want it, good for any traditional public, charter public, or private school. Doing so would let black parents get their kids out of California’s failed public schools and start learning.

2. Reform traditional public schools on the Mississippi model

I recently wrote about this model. Long stuck in the basement of school test scores, the Magnolia State enacted rigorous academic and discipline reforms and catapulted student test scores above most states.

3. Limit the excessive power of the teachers’ unions

End collective bargaining for unions, which began with the 1975 Rodda Act. That empowered the California Teachers Association and the smaller California Federation of Teachers to become by far the most powerful forces in the state, using union dues to take over control of the political process. Basically, as the unions themselves have boasted, the employees get to elect their own bosses. The unions then have stymied reforms, such as those I just listed, that especially would have benefited black students.

4. Reverse the recent ultra-legalization of abortion

Repeal last November’s passage of Proposition 1. Did you know blacks per capita suffer three times the abortions of everybody else? They are 13 percent of the population, but receive 39 percent of the abortions. Why is this acceptable? As part of reparations, shouldn’t fewer black babies be killed?

5. Expand housing property rights

Obtaining cheaper housing for black people obviously would relieve the housing problem. This is often portrayed, as in the Full Final Report, as the result of past injustices such as redlining and the abuse of eminent domain (taking property without just compensation). But a better way to look at reform is from the perspective of property rights. That is, enforcing the right to do what you want with your own property, such as build new housing to sell or rent, is crucial to freedom.

6. Reform the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)

Reforming CEQA would allow more housing construction to help blacks buy homes and pay rents. Even Mr. Newsom has pushed this—but was stymied in the Legislature. That’s also the fault of union power. As Oakland real estate lawyer Robert Selna wrote a year ago, “In an example from the East Bay, where I represent housing developers, leveraging the threat of CEQA litigation has been the longstanding strategy of an association of four building trade unions — that demand high-priced no-bid contracts from developers in exchange for an agreement to stand down on meritless CEQA claims.”

7. Make California a Right-to-Work state

According to Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute, “This means that an employee does not need to join a union and pay union dues to work for a company.” Shouldn’t that be an obvious right? Indeed, in the 2018 Janus decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, the right to not belong to a union was upheld. According to a report last month from the Mackinac Center, in the past five years 20 percent of workers in non-right-to-work states have dropped out of unions. But California still should join the 28 states that explicitly have enacted right-to-work legislation. Doing so would limit the union power currently stifling reforms to help black Californians.

8. End project labor agreements (PLAs)

According to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a PLA “requires all contractors, whether they are unionized or not, to subject themselves and their employees to unionization in order to work on a government-funded construction project.” A friend of mine in the construction says that typically doubles the cost of a building project, such as for low-cost housing. Cutting that cost in half—by ending PLAs—would reduce housing costs for black Californians.

Conclusion

Admittedly it would be difficult to pass any of these reforms to help black Californians, let alone all eight. The unions’ immense powers in this state block minimal reforms, such as for CEQA, even when a Democratic governor wants them.

But if black reformers and those allied with them shifted their emphasis from the destructive reparations chimera to working for real reforms, maybe something could get done. And note, all eight reforms, while helping blacks most, would help everybody else as well. This beautiful state is in bad shape, as shown by the hundreds of thousands leaving every year, and needs to be reformed at every level. That’s the real challenge.