Reparations for Black Californians Face Uphill Climb in State Legislature

“I’m not going to sit here and make the promise that everybody’s going to get a check,” said state Sen. Steve Bradford, a Democrat on the task force. “I want people to have a broader view on what reparations could be and a greater acceptance that it might take a little time.” 

The Legislative Black Caucus, which includes Bradford, is expected to lead any effort to act on the task force’s recommendations. While many members have said they support monetary reparations, some have also said programs to help Black descendants of slaves access higher education, buy a home or start a business may be more feasible in the short term. 

California’s state legislature passed the law creating the task force in 2020, soon after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Reparations are intended to compensate Black Californians for the legacy of slavery and racist policies such as redlining. 

While California joined the Union as a free state, task force research showed that hundreds if not thousands of Black slaves were brought to the state during the gold rush. It passed a fugitive-slave law allowing slaves brought into California before it became a state to be captured and returned to their owners.

The task force’s report, which has already been finalized, argues that the lingering effects of slavery and racist policies in the U.S. and California have contributed to longstanding inequities.

Black Californians make up 6% of the state population but make up 40% of people experiencing homelessness, according to federal data. The life expectancy for a Black person in California is 75.1 years, six years shorter than the state average, according to a 2021 state study on health disparities. A 2020 study by Zillow showed that Black-owned homes in California are worth an estimated 86% of the typical U.S. home value while white-owned homes are valued at about 108%.

The task force chose not to suggest specific dollar amounts for how much Black Californians should receive. Instead, it will recommend only that eligibility be restricted to Black Americans who can show they are descendants of slaves or of a person who was living in the U.S. before 1900. 

There are no suggestions for how people should prove they are eligible or whether there should be a means test or requirements for length of residency in California.

No hearings on reparations have been scheduled and legislators aren’t expected to act on the task force’s report until the next legislative session begins in January, according to people with knowledge of discussions in the legislature about reparations.

Some people in the Democratic-dominated legislature say they are waiting for a signal from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who would have to sign any policy proposal into law. In a statement last month, Newsom said, “Dealing with that legacy [of slavery] is about much more than cash payments.” A spokesman later clarified that the governor was “not ruling anything out.”

His spokesman declined to comment further, saying he is waiting for the final report to be submitted to the legislature on June 29. 

Among those who have testified to the task force and are hoping for legislative action are Jonathan Burgess. His great-great-grandfather, Rufus Burgess, was a former slave who was forced to sell his land to the state for far less than it was worth under eminent domain laws, according to Burgess.

Burgess, a battalion chief for the Sacramento Fire Department, said such racism has been present in California in the distant past and persists today, which is why he believes reparations are necessary.

“There were lynchings, there are our people buried under bodies of water, mass graves…most of my friends I grew up with are dead or have been in prison,” he said. 

The task force has held more than two dozen public hearings and solicited public comment. 

Many have argued that current taxpayers shouldn’t bear the burden of wrongs committed in the past and that members of other groups that have been oppressed shouldn’t have to help foot the bill for reparations.

“Who is paying for this?” read one public letter to the task force, expressing concerns that such a program could detract from public education funding and give priority to one group’s suffering over others. “Should Japanese-Americans whose families were interned pay? Or women, who were long considered chattel and couldn’t even own property during slavery[,] pay?” 

Economists hired by the state task force estimated the combined impact of redlining and aggressive policing on Black Californians could top $800 billion.

They also pegged Black Californians’ estimated losses to the dollar: $966,921 per person for a lifetime of adverse health outcomes; $115,248 for decades of over-policing and incarceration; $148,099 for the impacts of housing discrimination; and $70,000 for stunted access to capital and business opportunities.

Certain eligible individuals could be entitled to more than $1.3 million each under the task force’s suggested framework.

The report will contain more than 120 policy recommendations to legislators, as wide ranging as repealing the state’s 27-year-old ban on affirmative action, abolishing the death penalty and creating a guaranteed income program for descendants of enslaved people.

Some policy changes the California task force is recommending have previously failed to pass the legislature, including an end to unpaid prison labor.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a former state senator who helped pass the law creating the reparations task force, said any substantive proposals addressing the task force’s recommendations are sure to be controversial.

“Because now you’re talking resources, now you’re talking investment,” she said. 

Weber said that despite the public’s preoccupation with cash payments, she isn’t so sure that is the best way to improve outcomes for Black Californians, given the state’s limited resources.

“If we say that the health disparity in this country is great and every Black person gets $5,000, will that change the health disparities in California? Probably not,” she said.

Chris Lodgson, president of the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, a group that advocates for reparations, said cash payments are the only vehicle to address the decadeslong wealth gap caused by limits placed on Black Americans’ voting rights, earning potential and homeownership. His group hosted 20 town halls so far this year to mobilize Black Californians and others to push for cash reparations.

“Free school won’t do it. Free grants to businesses won’t do it. These things may be helpful, but they are really supplementary,” he said. “Our ancestors worked for free with no money for 250-plus years, so there is a lot of back pay due.”

Several local governments have passed reparations initiatives, but the suggestions from the California task force would be the most ambitious so far in the U.S. On Thursday, lawmakers in New York passed a bill that would create a state commission to study reparations. California cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento have launched their own committees. 

California’s state budget in the current fiscal year is $308 billion. Political leaders are currently debating how to plug an estimated $32 billion deficit while also addressing issues including homelessness and climate change. 

That has increased tension around spending money on reparations in the near term. 

But some who testified before the task force said legislators shouldn’t wait to take action.

“Do not spend more than two years making a final decision on these recommendations,” said Cheryce Cryer, a Los Angeles resident who traveled to Oakland for a task force hearing last month. “These do not need to simmer.”

Write to Christine Mai-Duc at [email protected]