California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) backed away Tuesday from the idea of paying reparations to descendants of slaves, after a state panel he signed into law calculated the state was liable for hundreds of billions of dollars.
Newsom signed a law in 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, establishing a reparations task force to examine whether California, a free state since its inception in 1850, owed money for slavery.
The committee, composed predominantly of black members, held hearings throughout the state and concluded that California owed black residents $1.2 million each — though it limited eligibility to descendants of slaves.
The committee’s recommendations, approved by a vote last weekend, will now go to the state legislature for consideration. But Newsom, perhaps with an eye to future presidential ambitions, is suddenly skeptical.