Reparations · State · NY
New York Assembly Bill A05603 Would Create State Freedmen Task Force and Bureau on Reparations
- Direction
- +2 — major benefit to freedmen
- Force
- 0.10 — introduced or referred
- Status
- Developing
- Date
- 2026-01-07
Why this rating
If enacted and fully effective, this bill would create a lineage-specific mechanism — a task force and a state freedmen's bureau — expressly tasked with examining harms to American freedmen and distributing reparations and reparative justice to them, making its purpose and mechanism a direct, material benefit specific to freedmen lineage rather than Black Americans generally. That is a +2 direction. However, the bill has only been referred to committee (initial referral 2025-02-18, still pending as of 2026-01-07) with no hearing, markup, or floor action recorded in the material, so it has produced no realized effect yet — placing force at 0.10, the lowest stage on the scale.
Summary
New York Assembly Bill A05603, sponsored by Assemblymember Nikki Lucas, would enact the "New York State American Freedmen Task Force on Reparations Remedies Act." The bill text acknowledges New York State's role in slavery and subsequent de jure and de facto racial, social, and economic discrimination against American freedmen, and establishes a task force to examine these forces and their impact on living American freedmen, with a mandate to make determinations regarding compensation and repair.
The bill also establishes a New York state freedmen's bureau charged with distributing reparations and reparative justice enacted through state legislation, and it includes an appropriation to fund these activities.
The bill was referred to the Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations on 2025-02-18 and remained in that committee as of the most recent recorded action on 2026-01-07, with no further advancement noted in the provided material.
Sources
Rated under the published impact rubric. Direction records what a measure would do if fully effective; force records how far it has actually travelled. Neither is inferred — both trace to the sources above. Think something here is wrong? Tell us and we will log the correction.