About a year ago, I noted that California Governor Gavin Newsom was less than enthusiastic about writing massive reparations checks recommended by the racialist panel he was responsible for forming.
The governor’s feelings toward the massive reparation numbers being put forth by that panel are readily explained by an ever-expanding state budget deficit, estimated at $31.5 billion at that time but which has since ballooned to nearly $47 billion (and is likely to be worse because high-tech and fossil fuel firms are exiting the state).
California reparations proponents have called on Newsom to issue an executive order on reparations and made other ludicrous demands, threatening to withhold their vote for Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris. On the other hand, reparations is extremely unpopular with American people as a whole, so signing any reparation measures would doom any likely success for Newsom should he throw his hat in the 2028 ring.
Therefore, Newsom did what he does best and politicked his what through a spate of racialist bills that recently hit his desk. He signed a bill that includes a formal apology for California’s role in slavery and its discrimination against black people, as well as several other related measures in the name of “racial healing” do not directly translate into a reparations bill in the sense that there is any direct financial compensation.
The atonement bill, Assembly Bill 3089, formalizes an apology from the State of California for ‘being complicit in slavery‘…despite the fact it was never a slave state.
California will issue a formal apology for being complicit in slavery during the 19th century and for enforcing segregationist policies against Black residents as one of several new laws that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed on Thursday to atone for the state’s past discriminatory treatment of African Americans.Last year, California became the first state in the country to explore concrete restitution for historical racism after a social justice movement was spurred by the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. A state reparations task force last year determined, among other acts, that California courts had enforced fugitive slave laws and that more than 2,000 enslaved people were brought to California even after it was admitted as a free state in 1850.The official request for forgiveness “for the perpetration of gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity on African slaves and their descendants” was one of the dozens of recommendations the reparations panel made last year.
Clearly missing from any of the apologies is a mention of financial compensation or establishing a fund for reparations. Instead, Newsom signed other bills designed to appeal to social justice activists, such as oversight on book bans in prisons, laws protecting natural hairstyles in sports, and efforts to increase participation in career training among black students.
- 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.
- Assembly Bill 3131, which requires the state department of education to prioritize funding for socioeconomically disadvantaged communities (requiring applicants in historically redlined communities to be given priority California Career Technical Education Incentive Grant Program).
Being the slick politico that he is, Newsom also recently vetoed a bill that would have helped Black families reclaim or be compensated for property unjustly taken in racially motivated uses of eminent domain….while praising the author of said bill.
Newsom said in his veto message that while he thanked the bill’s author “for his commitment to redressing past racial injustices,” it tasked “a nonexistent state agency to carry out its various provisions and requirements, making it impossible to implement.”…Newsom also thanked the state’s Legislative Black Caucus Chair Lori Wilson (D) for her efforts along with the rest of the caucus.“As we confront the lasting legacy of slavery, I’m profoundly grateful for the efforts put forward by Chair Wilson and the members of the California Legislative Black Caucus,” he said in the statement.
Legal Insurrection readers will not be surprised that reparations proponents are unhappy.
Meanwhile, as a Californian, I am equally unhappy that time and resources were spent on this division-creating inanity.
In conclusion: This tells me Newsom is running in 2028 without directly using those words. If he succeeds, this is the kind of leadership that rest of the nation may experience.
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