A few days ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill aimed at helping Black families reclaim land that was seized. The bill sought to create a process for families to file claims with the state if they believed their property had been taken through eminent domain due to discriminatory motives and without fair compensation.
Newsom signed several bills resulting from a yearslong effort to issue race-based reparations for the state’s Black residents and their descendants. Members of the California Legislative Black Caucus praised his approval of four bills, including one offering an apology for the state’s role in supporting slavery.
Despite the praise, some advocates and at least one lawmaker argued that the bills do not go far enough to address the generational disparities caused by slavery.
Sen. Steven A. Bradford, a member of the California Reparations Task Force, which had published a comprehensive list of recommendations to address the social and financial injustices of slavery and racial discrimination, was among those disappointed. One of Bradford’s bills, which would have established a process for the restitution of land taken through racist practices, was the only bill from a separate reparations package to pass through the Legislature.
It passed with bipartisan support in both the California Senate and Assembly, but Newsom vetoed it on Wednesday.
In his remarks, Newsom said the bill could not function without the creation of a Freedmen Affairs Agency, which would have been established by another of Bradford’s bills. Bradford, however, stated that the Black Caucus blocked that bill from reaching the floor for a vote. “We had enough votes and were at the finish line,” he said in a statement.
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Advocates who were hoping for more ambitious legislation that would make a substantial investment in reparations were sorely disappointed.
The measures passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Newsom, including bans on discrimination based on natural and protective hairstyles and reviews of books banned in prisons, are closer to “racial equity measures,” according to Kamilah Moore, chair of the Reparations Task Force. These policies notably did not carry hefty financial commitments.
Bradford’s bills “represented the strongest recommendations in the report,” Moore said. They “aligned with the true essence of reparations.”
The task force, which met from June 2021 to June 2023, conducted research, collected testimony, and released a report with over 100 policy recommendations for the governor and Legislature. These recommendations included repealing Proposition 209, a 1996 law banning affirmative action in public agencies, abolishing the death penalty, and increasing funding for schools to address racial disparities.
Altogether, the task force’s recommendations were estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars. While Newsom expressed general support for reparations and said he had “devoured” the report, the state’s ongoing budget deficit raised concerns about the financial feasibility of implementing such policies. Newsom allocated $12 million in the state budget to support any successful reparations measures.
Bradford said the Black Caucus blocked his bills due to concerns over a potential veto. Newsom’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Assemblymember Lori Wilson, chair of the Black Caucus, confirmed that there were concerns about the bills “from the beginning” and that Newsom’s objections were “no surprise.” She declined to specify the concerns but suggested they would be addressed when the bills are reintroduced in the next session.
The centerpiece of Bradford’s reparations package was the Freedmen Affairs Agency, which would have overseen state reparations initiatives. The agency was estimated to cost between $3 million and $5 million annually.
In the final week of September, two competing reparations packages were expected to come to a vote: Bradford’s three bills and six from the Black Caucus. On September 23, the governor’s office proposed amendments to Bradford’s bills, suggesting the Freedmen Affairs Agency be replaced with a university-based research program. Bradford rejected the changes, believing he still had the support of his colleagues in the Black Caucus.
By the end of the week, it became clear that members of the caucus had shifted their stance, deciding to block two of Bradford’s bills, despite their likely passage.
In the final hours of the legislative session, dozens of protesters gathered in the Capitol lobby to support Bradford’s bills. Among them was Moore, the task force chair, who traveled from Los Angeles with 20 other supporters to show her backing. “I wanted to see the process all the way through,” she said.
Organizer Chris Lodgson, who works with the Coalition for Just and Equitable California, a group that facilitated community education and feedback sessions for the task force, was also at the Capitol. “To say we are extremely disappointed is an understatement,” Lodgson said. “We felt betrayed by caucus members.”
Last week, Bradford said he had been responding to concerns from a broader community of pro-reparations politicians, including those in the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, D.C. Legislators across the country, including those in New York and Illinois, had looked to California as a model for progressive reparations legislation and were similarly disappointed.
As 16 municipalities, along with New York state and Illinois, work on their own reparations proposals, members of California’s task force remain in contact with a wide network of legislators focused on reparations.
Nationally, lawmakers are discussing the future of H.R. 40, a federal bill to establish a commission to study slavery and develop reparations proposals, following the death of its sponsor, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.
“This isn’t just about California,” Bradford said. “It’s about the rest of the nation.”
