In September 2020, amid the national uproar over the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his plan to establish a slavery reparations task force to remedy the wrongs of America’s past.
“CA just became the first state in the nation to mandate the study and development of proposals for reparations,” he announced on Twitter. “Our past is one of slavery, racism, and injustice. Our systems were built to oppress people of color. It’s past time we acknowledge that.”
It didn’t matter, apparently, that California was never a slave state, but we’re sure Newsom felt very good about himself at this moment. But as time went by and the “racial reckoning” mania subsided, Newsom found himself having to dance around the inevitable fact that this was definitely going to be an unwieldy issue to have kicked up.
In March 2023, PBS reported, “It could cost California more than $800 billion to compensate Black residents for generations of over-policing, disproportionate incarceration and housing discrimination, economists have told a state panel considering reparations.”
Soon after, Newsom had to insist, “Dealing with that legacy is about much more than cash payments.” And so the balancing act began.
Fast forward to this latest legislative session and his ongoing dancing around the mess he helped create. According to CalMatters, he signed five bills and vetoed five others.
On the one hand, he vetoed proposals giving descendants of slavery preferential admissions in California colleges and another bill to establish a process for people to receive compensation for racially motivated eminent domain cases. The first proposal almost certainly would have been defeated in the courts, while the other sounds like a fiscal disaster waiting to happen.
But on the other hand, he proceeded to dig a deeper hole for California on this.
One of the bills he signed will establish a Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery, described by the California Legislative Black Caucus as a “permanent state agency dedicated to advancing reparative initiatives… charged with, among other things, confirming descendancy, public education and outreach, and reparative program coordination. By enacting this measure, California turns study and recommendations into lasting systems designed to serve future generations.”
In other words, Newsom, who is entering his final year as governor, has now thrust this issue onto anyone who succeeds him from now on as a permanent part of the state bureaucracy.