SACRAMENTO, Calif. — After two years of deliberations, California’s Reparations Task Force on Thursday is sending its final report and recommendations to the state Capitol, where Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers will ultimately decide how the state should atone for slavery.
“We must remind each and every one of us that the final report is not the end of the work. It’s really just the beginning,” said Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardenia), who served on the task force, during its final meeting. “It is now up to the Legislature, which I’m part of, and the governor to implement it.”
The governor and state Legislature began the historic process in 2020 with the goal of establishing a path to reparations that could serve as a model for the nation.
The conclusion of the task force’s work places political pressure on Democrats to finally deliver on their support for reparations — an issue that opinion polls show most Americans view unfavorably — with long awaited cash payments and sweeping policy change to descendants of African Americans enslaved in the United States to right the wrongs of the past.
The success or failure of the reparations proposal in one of the most liberal statehouses in the country will also serve as a bellwether beyond California and could carry political ramifications for the Democratic party in the 2024 election.
“If it fails in California, that is a harbinger for the movement and that it is actually not going to gain steam in a lot of other states,” said Tatishe M. Nteta, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and director of the UMass Poll. “But if it succeeds, then it has this symbolic and substantive impact that is going to be really important for this movement going forward.”
Nteta and UMass have been surveying Americans about where they stand on reparations. The results from his June poll weren’t great for reparations advocates.
Only 35% of respondents said they supported cash payments for the descendants of slaves and 65% were opposed. Support for a formal apology to descendants was higher at 57%, but only 43% backed the idea of providing housing assistance.
The most often cited reason for opposing reparations, according to the results of a January poll, wasn’t the cost or the complicated nature of figuring out how to compensate individuals. It came down to a perception that African Americans do not deserve remedies, he said.
“There’s a belief that the descendants of slaves do not deserve anything, not just cash payments, but educational systems, housing, or even an apology and that if any sort of debt, if it existed, was to be paid to slaves, the last slave is long gone, and so the debt died with them,” Nteta said.
The task force has spent the last two years hearing testimony from academics, economists and other experts to gather evidence of the effects of slavery and to prove the ways in which government sanctioned policies continued to discriminate against Black people long after slavery was abolished.
The remedies in the report for lawmakers go far beyond cash payments and include policies to end the death penalty, pay fair market value for jail and prison labor, restore voting rights to all formerly and currently incarcerated people, apply rent caps to historically red-lined zip codes that disadvantaged Black residents and offer free college tuition to people who are eligible for reparations, among dozens of other suggestions.
“For those reactionaries who say slavery is old news, and the time for reparations has passed, well, you know what, I’ve been a civil rights lawyer for 20 years and I say show me the statute of limitations on mass genocide,” said Lisa Holder, a member of the task force, during the Thursday meeting. “Show me the statute of limitations on the world’s greatest crime against humanity and show me the statute of limitations on accountability for original sin.”
There’s no better political landscape than California to consider remedies, said Nteta.
The state has a supermajority of Democrats in the Legislature and a progressive Democratic governor in Newsom who enjoys getting ahead of the pack on national issues, such as his support for gay marriage nearly two decades ago as San Francisco mayor.
Bradford and Assembly member Reggie Jones Sawye, D-Los Angeles, who also served on the task force, intend to shepherd reparations through the state Legislature, where the proposal will likely be discussed publicly next year as lawmakers debate which policies to approve.
“Our biggest challenge is convincing individuals who are not African American that this harm is still persisting even today,” Jones Sawyer said.
Bradford expects opposition to come from Republicans and some Democrats.
“I’m not delusional at all in thinking that this is going to be some slam dunk and that folks are gonna come on board and accept it widely,” Bradford said. “I think even many of our allies are going to have problems with some of the recommendations and funding this program as well.”
Cash payments have already become controversial.
For health disparities, the task force recommends $13,619 for each year of residency in California - a figure that was derived by comparing life expectancy between Black non-Hispanic and white non-Hispanic Californians. To compensate for mass incarceration and over-policing of African Americans, the task force recommends eligible descendants receive $2,352 for each year of residency in California during the war on drugs from 1971 to 2020. Compensation for housing discrimination totaled $3,378 for each year between 1933 and 1977 that a descendant resided in California.
An Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics survey conducted in early June found that 50% of California respondents opposed paying as much as $1.2 million to descendants of slaves, a maximum amount set by the task force that many will not qualify for and lawmakers could change. A little more than a quarter of those surveyed supported the payments.
When asked about his stance on the proposal in May, Newsom said reparations are more than just cash payments. Fox News host Sean Hannity pressed him again about his position on reparations during an interview in mid-June.
The governor said he had not yet read the recommendations and repeated the idea that reparations come in many forms. He said the state would need to “level set” and explained that his original statement implied “a deeper rationalization of what is achievable, what’s reasonable and what is right and that’s the balance that we will try to advance.”
California’s $31.5 billion state budget deficit also adds to the complexity of approving payments, though advocates argue that the state could allocate a percentage of the budget each year or find other ways to fund reparations over time.
During public comment at final task force meeting in Sacramento, speakers implored the governor for his support, saying Newsom would need the Black community’s backing later.
In an interview, Aimee Allison, the founder and president of an advocacy group that pushes for more women of color to hold elected office, said Black Californians are watching the governor’s moves.
Allison’s organization, She The People, endorsed Congresswoman Barbara Lee for U.S. Senate. Newsom previously said if U.S. Sen Dianne Feinstein did not finish her term, he would appoint a Black woman to her position. Newsom has not endorsed anyone in the Senate race thus far, despite being pressured to back Lee.
Allison said there’s no middle road for the governor when it comes to his relationship with Black leadership, racial healing and economic justice. Allison said Newsom shouldn’t dismiss the economic claims of Black Californians - and by proxy Black people nationally - in a country that has never officially atoned for slavery.
“This is as important a moment for Gavin Newsom as was his early embrace and advocacy for gay marriage,” Allison said. “By standing for reparations he establishes his national leadership to Black Americans in California and beyond.”
Bradford and Jones Sawyer want to get as much possible done before they term out of office in 2024. The timing could require Newsom to sign or veto a reparations proposal before the presidential election.
Nteta said President Biden has “shied away from reparations,” aware that the policy could be used against him by his GOP opponents in his re-election race.
“If it does pass in California, there is no doubt in my mind that DeSantis or Trump, or any of the Republican nominees, would say this is what happens when you place Democrats in power,” Nteta said. “It is an easy policy, because it is so supremely unpopular, to then mobilize folks that are still undecided in terms of who they would want to support.”
