The Sconi

A recent survey reveals that 69 percent of Wisconsin voters are against financial reparations to African American residents due to past discrimination. The poll said that such payments are viewed unfavorably by voters, including 68 percent of independents.

According to the results of the poll conducted by North Star Opinion Research and published by the League of American Workers, only 19 percent of Wisconsin voters believed reparations payments from non-African American residents to African American Wisconsinites were a beneficial idea. Republicans and independents were generally against reparations payments, with Democrats narrowly supporting the concept with a slim 41 to 39 percent margin.

The poll also highlighted that younger voters were more likely to back the idea than older ones. However, even among this group, specifically voters aged between 18 and 34, only 24 percent expressed support for reparations payments.

Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) joined 20 of her colleagues in sponsoring U.S. Sen. Cory Booker's (D-N.J.) Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, or S.40. According to a statement on Booker's website, if passed, S.40 would establish a commission tasked with studying "the impact of slavery and the continuing discrimination against African-Americans" and developing recommendations on reparation proposals for descendants of slaves.

In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) signed similar legislation that established a reparations task force aimed at addressing how to compensate African-American Californians for systemic racism inflicted upon their ancestors. As per a report from CalMatters, in 2023 the task force recommended that reparations payments be made "to African American descendants of a chattel enslaved person, or descendants of a free Black person living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th Century" as compensation for various categories of "atrocity."

CalMatters estimated that a qualified African American resident, who has lived in California for seven decades, could be entitled to a payment of as much as $1.2 million.