Newsom deals wins and blows to California reparations effort

California Gov. Gavin Newsom dealt both wins and losses to legislation linked to the state's groundbreaking reparations efforts on Wednesday.

Among the wins was his signing of Assembly Bill 3089, which will issue a formal apology from the state of California for "all of the harms and atrocities committed by the state" for perpetuating racial discrimination through chattel slavery, segregation, unequal disbursal of government funding and more.

This bill "declares that such actions shall not be repeated" and "commits to restore and repair affected peoples with actions beyond this apology."

Newsom also signed Senate Bill 1089, which will address food and health inequities by requiring advance notification if a grocery store or pharmacy is closing in an underserved or at-risk community.

However, he vetoed Senate Bill 1050, a bill that would have restored property taken under racially-motivated uses of eminent domain to its original owners or provide another remedy, such as restitution or compensation.

"I thank the author for his commitment to redressing past racial injustices," Newsom said in a statement, referring to state Sen. Steven Bradford. "However, this bill tasks a nonexistent state agency to carry out its various provisions and requirements, making it impossible to implement."

The agency that would have carried out the policy would have been created if Senate Bill 1403 passed the legislature. The bill, also introduced by Bradford, was intended to create an agency to carry out the recommendations of the state's groundbreaking first-in-the-nation Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans.

It failed following last-minute changes from the Newsom administration that instead aimed to support further research on reparations in the state instead of creating the agency to carry out reparations recommendations from the state task force, according to local news outlet CalMatters.

Newsom also vetoed Assembly Bill 1975, which was aimed at making "medically supportive" food and nutrition interventions a part of Medi-Cal benefits in the state.

He signed several other bills aimed at addressing racial inequity in the state, including:

• Assembly Bill 1986, which requires the Office of the Inspector General to promote access to literature for incarcerated people by posting a list of banned books in state prisons.
• Assembly Bill 2319, which requires the Attorney General to enforce compliance with anti-bias training for perinatal healthcare workers.
• Assembly Bill 1815, which adjusts the definition of “race” to strengthen discrimination protections by including traits associated with race, such as hair texture.

On Sept. 22, he signed Assembly Bill 3131, which requires the state department of education to prioritize funding for socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, on Sept. 22.

This bill would require the department, in consultation with the executive director of the State Board of Education, when determining grant recipients for the California Career Technical Education Incentive Grant Program, to first give priority consideration to applicants in historically redlined communities, as determined by the department. The same would apply to the K–12 Selection Committees, when determining grant recipients under the K–12 component of the Strong Workforce Program.

The California Legislative Black Caucus aimed to create legislation that would capture the many forms that reparations can take, according to Assemblywoman Lori D. Wilson, the caucus's chair.

"While many only associate direct cash payments with reparations, the true meaning of the word, to repair, involves much more," said Wilson in the introduction of the reparations legislative package.

She noted that the package addressed the need for "a comprehensive approach to dismantling the legacy of slavery and systemic racism."

This legislative package was born out of California's first-in-the-nation state-backed task force that found the state and various arms of its government played an active role in perpetuating systemic racism against Black Californians through discrimination in housing, education and employment.

Several other bills from the California Legislative Black Caucus' 14-bill reparations package failed to make it through the legislature.

The bills that failed to make it through the legislature included bans on involuntary servitude and solitary confinement in state detention facilities, funding for violence reduction programs, and funding "for the purpose of increasing the life expectancy of, improving educational outcomes for, or lifting out of poverty specific groups."