California lawmakers pass landmark bills to atone for racism, but hold off on fund to take action

Associated Press/Report for America

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers this week passed some of the nation’s most ambitious legislation aimed at atoning for a legacy of racist policies that drove disparities for Black people, from housing to education to health.

None of the bills would provide widespread direct payments to African Americans. The state Legislature instead approved proposals allowing for the return of land or compensation to families whose property was unjustly seized by the government, and issuing a formal apology for laws and practices that have harmed Black people.

But lawmakers left out two bills that would have created a fund and an agency to carry out the measures, considered key components of the efforts to take action. California Legislative Black Caucus Chair Assemblymember Lori Wilson said Saturday that the Black Caucus pulled the bills, adding the proposals need more work.

“We knew from the very beginning that it was an uphill battle. … And we also knew from the very beginning that it would be a multiyear effort,” Wilson told reporters.

Sen. Steven Bradford, who authored the measures, said the bills didn’t move forward out of fear Gov. Gavin Newsom would veto them.

“We’re at the finish line, and we, as the Black Caucus, owe it to the descendants of chattel slavery, to Black Californians and Black Americans, to move this legislation forward,” Bradford said, urging his colleague to reconsider Saturday afternoon.

The Democratic governor hasn’t weighed in on most of the bills, but he signed a $297.9 billion budget in June that included up to $12 million for reparations legislation. However the budget did not specify what proposals the money would be used for, and his administration has signaled its opposition to some of them. Newsom has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign the bills that passed into law.

Democratic Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who is Black, called his bill to issue a formal apology for discrimination “a labor of love.” His uncle was part of a group of African American students who in the 1950s were escorted by federal troops past an angry white mob into Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional. The students became known as the “ Little Rock Nine.”

“I think my grandmother, my grandfather, would be extremely proud for what we are going to do today,” Jones-Sawyer said ahead of the vote on the legislation that was passed. “Because that is why they struggled in 1957, so that I’d be able to — and we’d be able to — move forward our people.”

Newsom approved a law in 2020 creating a first-in-the-nation task force to study reparations proposals. New York state and Illinois have since followed suit with similar legislation. The California group released a final report last year with more than 100 recommendations for lawmakers.

Newsom signed a law last month requiring school districts that receive state funding for a career education program to collect data on the performance of participating students by race and gender. The legislation, part of a reparations package backed by the California Legislative Black Caucus, aims to help address gaps in student outcomes.

Returning seized property

The state Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill on the return of land or compensation to families whose property was taken unfairly through racially discriminatory means using eminent domain.

The topic garnered renewed attention in California when Los Angeles-area officials returned a beachfront property in 2022 to a Black couple decades after it was seized from their ancestors.

The Newsom administration’s Department of Finance opposes the bill. The agency says the cost to implement it is unknown but could “range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to low millions of dollars annually, depending on the workload required to accept, review, and investigate applications.”

It’s not immediately clear how the initiative would be enacted even if Newsom signs it into law, after lawmakers dropped the measure to create an agency to implement it. That proposal would have formed a genealogy office to help Black Californians research their family lineage and verify their eligibility for any reparations that become law.

Formal apology

California would accept responsibility and formally apologize for its role in perpetuating segregation, economic disparities and discrimination against Black Americans under another bill the Legislature approved.

The legislation requires the secretary of state to send a final copy of the apology to the state archives, where it could be viewed by the public.

The apology would say that the state “affirms its role in protecting the descendants of enslaved people and all Black Californians as well as their civil, political, and sociocultural rights.”

California American Freedmen Affairs Agency and fund

The two failed proposals would have created an agency to implement reparations programs if they are passed in California.

It could have cost the state between $3 million and $5 million annually to run the reparations agency, according to the California Government Operations Agency.

Another proposal would have established a fund for reparations programs that become law in California. The money would have been used to address state policies that have harmed Californians descended from enslaved Black people or free Black people living in the U.S. before the end of the 19th century.

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Associated Press writer Trân Nguyễn contributed to this report.

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Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X: @sophieadanna