Governor Gavin Newsom has dealt a blow to reparations efforts in California that will see the state formally apologise for the lingering effects of slavery after he vetoed a key property bill.
The rejected Senate Bill 1050 would have helped Black families reclaim or be compensated for property that was unjustly seized by the government through racially motivated eminent domain.
The governors reasons for not going ahead with the property proposal are because lawmakers blocked another bill to create a reparations agency that would have reviewed these claims, meaning the proposal wouldnt have been able to come into full effect.
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 legislation was part of a package of reparations bills introduced this year that seek to offer repair for decades of policies that drove racial disparities for African Americans, which will see the state of California formally apologise for slavery.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has rejected a bill that would have helped Black families reclaim or be compensated for land taken from them unfairly
Man holds up a sign during a meeting by the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans in Oakland, Calif., Dec. 14, 2022
Newsom also approved laws to improve protections against hair discrimination for athletes and increase oversight over the banning of books in state prisons.
The State of California accepts responsibility for the role we played in promoting, facilitating, and permitting the institution of slavery, as well as its enduring legacy of persistent racial disparities, the Democratic governor said in a statement.
Building on decades of work, California is now taking another important step forward in recognizing the grave injustices of the past - and making amends for the harms caused.
California entered the union as a free state in 1850. In practice, it sanctioned slavery and approved policies and practices that thwarted Black people from owning homes and starting businesses.
Black families were terrorized, their communities aggressively policed and their neighborhoods polluted, according to a report published by a first-in-the-nation state reparations task force.
Efforts to study reparations at the federal level have stalled in Congress for decades.
California has moved further along on the issue than any other state. But state lawmakers did not introduce legislation this year to give widespread direct payments to African Americans, which frustrated some reparations advocates.
Newsom approved a $297.9 billion budget in June that included up to $12 million for reparations legislation that became law.
He already signed laws included in the reparations package aimed at improving outcomes for students of color in K-12 career education programs. Another proposal the Black caucus backed this year that would ban forced labor as a punishment for crime in the state constitution will be on the ballot in November.
People listen during a rally in support of reparations for African Americans outside City Hall in San Francisco, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023
State Assembly member Isaac Bryan, a Democrat representing Culver City, called legislation he authored to increase oversight over books banned in state prisons a first step to fix a shadowy process in which the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation decides which books to ban.
The corrections department maintains a list of disapproved publications it bans after determining the content could pose a security threat, includes obscene material or otherwise violates department rules.
The new law authorizes the Office of the Inspector General, which oversees the state prison system, to review works on the list and evaluate the departments reasoning for banning them. It requires the agency to notify the office of any changes made to the list, and it makes the office post the list on its website.
We need transparency in this process, Bryan said. We need to know what books are banned, and we need a mechanism for removing books off of that list.