Support for H.R Bill 40

Congressman Blumenauer,

Thank you for your 2017 response to my inquiry about your support for H.R. 40. It was recently brought to my attention that, as of this most recent Congress, you’re now a co-sponsor on the bill. I want to extend my gratitude for your contribution in helping get this legislation the long overdue consideration it deserves. The pandemic is leveraging historic, racist inequality into disproportionate harm to Black people, threatening to further widen the equity gap as we move on toward recovery. Months of protests over heinous and racist police brutality and injustice have raised awareness and sympathy of the greatest portion of the American public, especially your constituent Portlanders, since at least the Civil Rights era, if not ever. With these two forces at work, pursuing a path toward reparations is at perhaps its most timely, critical juncture. For Americans still beset by residual economic deprivation imposed by centuries of slavery and racist law, regulation, and law enforcement, what further calamities do they have to endure before the U.S. Congress will tend to the work of restoring some material portion of what has been stolen from them?

In the upcoming new Congress, please help get this to the floor.

Kind regards,

Clay Fouts

Portland, Oregon