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Gabbard was one of the earliest 2020 candidates to sign onto H.R. 40. She worked as a congressional legislative aide to her mentor the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, who in 1993 spearheaded a resolution, passed and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, apologizing for America's illegal role in overthrowing Hawaii's Queen Lili'uokalani in 1893.

Gabbard, in an interview in New Hampshire with WMUR, talked about reparations: \"I think something similar needs to take place for other indigenous people and for the dark tragedy of slavery that occurred in our country's history.”

In early April, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., held a joint press conference with Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., to promote a 10/20/30 funding bill outside of the U.S. Capitol, a measure that seeks to allocate 10% of federal funds to invest into counties that have had a poverty level of at least 20% for over 30 years.

When asked by ABC News if the bill was a form of reparations Booker declined to comment, but Clyburn, the dean of the South Carolina congressional delegation, said that he \"absolutely\" feels it is.

Days later, Booker tweeted that he planned on introducing H.R. 40 in the Senate as part of a companion bill.

At the hearing on Wednesdsay, Booker said \"I feel a sense of anger where we are in the United States of America, where we have not yet had conversations about a lot of the root causes of the inequities, and the pain and the hurt manifested in economic disparities. Manifested in health disparities. Manifested in disparities a criminal justice system that is indeed a form of a new Jim Crow.\"

He continued, \"we as a nation have not yet acknowledged and grappled with racism and white supremacy that has tainted this country's founding and continues to persist in those deep racial disparities and inequalities today.\"

\"PHOTO:
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
PHOTO: Sen. Cory Booker, left, greets Danny Glover, before they testify about reparations for the descendants of slaves, during a hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee in Washington, June 19, 2019.
>

Another 2020 candidate who's been talking about reparations since 1997 is spiritual leader Marianne Williamson, who told ABC News Monday, \"The whole idea of reparations, to me, has been an extension of a moral principle.\"

Williamson said reparations tackles \"the economic gap that existed at the end of the Civil War and has never been closed.\"

Williamson added: \"The reason I feel strongly about reparations is because there is an inherent mea culpa, there's an inherent acknowledgment, that a wrong that has been done.\"

While support for the measure has gained momentum among several 2020 candidates, the Senate's most prominent Republican, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, voiced blunt opposition to the idea of reparations on Tuesday.

\"I don't think reparations for something that happened 150 years for whom none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea,\" McConnell told reporters at a press conference. \"We've tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a Civil War, by passing landmark civil rights legislation, by electing an African American president.\"

He said that another issue is that it would be hard to \"figure out\" whom to compensate.

\"We've had waves of immigrants, as well, who have come to this country and experienced dramatic discrimination of one kind or another,\" he said. \"So, no, I don't think reparations are a good idea.\"

Coleman Hughes, who is African American, said he agreed with that sentiment saying reparations are an “insult many African Americans.”

However, Coates criticized McConnell over his comments on reparations saying: \"For a century after the Civil War, black people were subjected to a relentless campaign of terror, a campaign that extended well into the lifetime of Majority leader McConnell.\" He added that \"it is tempting to divorce this modern campaign of terror, of plunder, from enslavement. But the logic of enslavement, of white supremacy, respects no such borders.\"

ABC News' Briana Stewart, Miriam Khan Christen Hill and Lissette Rodriguez contributed to this report.

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