California touted reparations push, but advocates say new policies fall short

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a handful of bills on Thursday that stemmed from a yearslong effort to issue race-based reparations for the state’s Black residents and their descendants. Members of the California Legislative Black Caucus heralded his signature on four bills, including an apology for the state’s role in promoting slavery.

But some advocates — and at least one lawmaker — said the bills do not go far enough to address the generational disparities that slavery inflicted upon Black people.

Sen. Steven A. Bradford was a member of the California Reparations Task Force, which published a sweeping list of recommendations for policies and programs to holistically address the social and financial wrongs of slavery and racial discrimination in the state.

One of his own bills, which would have set up a process for the restitution of land taken through racist tactics, was the only bill in a separate reparations package to make it past the Legislature.

It passed with bipartisan support in the California Senate and Assembly, but was vetoed by Newsom on Wednesday.

In his remarks, Newsom said the bill could not function without the accompanying Freedmen Affairs Agency, which would have been established by another one of Bradford’s bills. Bradford said the Black Caucus blocked that bill from reaching the floor for a vote. “We had enough votes and were at the finish line,” he said in a statement.

Advocates hoping for more ambitious laws to provide a more substantial investment in reparations were sorely disappointed.

The measures passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Newsom, which ranged from banning discrimination based on natural and protective hairstyles to reviewing the list of books banned in prisons,