Patient Conyers hopes to move slavery bill during an Obama administration

[stephanie]

By Bob Cusack
Posted: 03/12/07 07:39 PM [ET]
After waiting nearly two decades, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) is well positioned to move legislation that could lead the federal government to apologize for slavery and pay reparations.

But the Judiciary Committee chairman is willing to wait two more years, when he hopes Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will be in the White House.

In every Congress since 1989, Conyers has introduced the controversial measure that falls under the sole jurisdiction of the Judiciary panel. But the legislation was dormant in the Republican-led House and failed to move through committee when then-Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Texas) headed the Judiciary Committee before the GOP revolution of 1994.
Despite having finally arrived at the head of the powerful committee, the 77-year-old Conyers is prepared to wait yet longer and is biding his time.

Conyers noted that his bill calls for the president to appoint three members to a seven-member commission to analyze the effects of slavery. The House Speaker would make three appointments, while the president pro tempore of the Senate would tap one member.

Even if he had the votes to make his bill law — a big if — Conyers does not want President Bush’s appointees to have a role on such a panel.

The Michigan lawmaker, who has strongly backed Obama for president, said he has not called on the senator to endorse his measure. “I don’t want to put him on the spot,” Conyers told The Hill.

Obama’s campaign did not respond to requests for information about the senator’s position on the bill, H.R. 40. Yet Obama’s stance could be extremely important as he and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) vigorously court the black vote and wrap themselves in the mantle of the civil rights movement.

Both front-runners visited Selma, Ala., this month to commemorate the sacrifices of black demonstrators who were assaulted crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965.

The Clinton campaign also did not comment on the Conyers bill.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), another 2008 White House hopeful, supports the Conyers measure and a formal apology for slavery. In a statement, Richardson said, “Slavery is one of the most tragic periods of our great nation, and we continue to struggle with the legacy of slavery.”

Conyers’s measure recently attracted the cosponsorship of civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.).

Lewis said he believes the federal government should follow Virginia’s recent lead and apologize for slavery, though he opposes reparations.

The Bush administration indicated opposition to Conyers’s bill in 2001, when then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said living African-Americans should not be paid for the wrongs of slavery.

Conyers countered that reparations should not be dismissed prematurely, pointing out that trust funds have been established for Holocaust survivors, World War II-era internment victims and Native Americans.


read the rest..
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/...007-03-12.html

[Yurt]

good grief. as if "affirmative" action wasn't enough. redrawing district lines wasn't enough....i knew black africans in college and they thought american blacks were spoiled and had nothing in common with african blacks.

[hjmick]

This is and always has been a bad idea. How are they to determine who gets reparations? Though I appear to white, perhaps my great great great great grandfather was a slave. Am I then eligible for some of this guilt money? How many of the people who would recieve this handout suffered from slavery? And don't tell me that they still suffer, that the scars are generational. There has been slavery for centuries, Black, White, Yellow, Brown, Jew, Christian, Turk, pick a race, religion, culture. Perhaps the African Blacks who sold their own people into slavery should pony up half of the cash for this plan, it's only fair.

Slavery sucked, it was wrong, it was a crime, it was abolished, a war was fought in part to end it. Was the price payed in blood not enough?

My family owned no slaves, why should my tax dollars pay for this plan? Because I am white?

When did it become fashionable to force the sons to pay for the sins of the fathers?

Give them their forty acres and a mule and be done with it.

[Dilloduck]

This is and always has been a bad idea. How are they to determine who gets reparations? Though I appear to white, perhaps my great great great great grandfather was a slave. Am I then eligible for some of this guilt money? How many of the people who would recieve this handout suffered from slavery? And don't tell me that they still suffer, that the scars are generational. There has been slavery for centuries, Black, White, Yellow, Brown, Jew, Christian, Turk, pick a race, religion, culture. Perhaps the African Blacks who sold their own people into slavery should pony up half of the cash for this plan, it's only fair.

Slavery sucked, it was wrong, it was a crime, it was abolished, a war was fought in part to end it. Was the price payed in blood not enough?

My family owned no slaves, why should my tax dollars pay for this plan? Because I am white?

When did it become fashionable to force the sons to pay for the sins of the fathers?

Give them their forty acres and a mule and be done with it.

Don't forget to include the Portugese and the Dutch.

[JohnDoe]

Just to NOTE:

This article is a year old, in case anyone did not notice.

Not that this would change the article that much, but it seems there could be alot more on this subject, one year later.....so just an fyi to look for it!

jd

[manu1959]

what about white slaves.....

[hjmick]

Just to NOTE:

This article is a year old, in case anyone did not notice.

Not that this would change the article that much, but it seems there could be alot more on this subject, one year later.....so just an fyi to look for it!

jd

Heh, truthfully, I did not notice the date. This topic tends to get my hackles up. Just in case you didn't notice.

[JohnDoe]

Heh, truthfully, I did not notice the date. This topic tends to get my hackles up. Just in case you didn't notice.

Nahhhhhhhhhh, I didn't notice!

[hjmick]

Nahhhhhhhhhh, I didn't notice!

Yeah, I'm subtle that way.

[theHawk]

So who is going to pay for these reparations?

Will the "apology" also include thanking the GOP for ending slavery?

[Immanuel]

Will the "apology" also include thanking the GOP for ending slavery?

You're kidding right? Look who wrote the bill and the initial after his name. It will probably thank the Democratic Party for fighting for these reparations and for their efforts during the Civil Rights movement and blame the Republican Party for everything from the Biblical beginnings of slavery to the dragging death of James Byrd in Jasper, Tx.

Immie

[gabosaurus]

This is a moot point. Obama has previously stood against such a measure, earning him a rebuke from radical blacks.

[Mr. P]

Just to NOTE:

This article is a year old, in case anyone did not notice.

Not that this would change the article that much, but it seems there could be alot more on this subject, one year later.....so just an fyi to look for it!

jd

And The Emancipation Proclamation is 145 years old. Go figure why Conyers wants reparations.

[hjmick]

This is a moot point. Obama has previously stood against such a measure, earning him a rebuke from radical blacks.

Excellent point, because we all know that politicians never change their positions on any issue after they are elected, not even when pressured by special interest groups who may or may not have been instrumental in getting said politician elected to his or her desired office.

[gabosaurus]

Obama has been opposed by such "special interest" groups in the past. They opposed his bid for the Illinois state senate, and they opposed his bid for the U.S. Senate.
How is Obama "indebted" to them?