Just a few years ago, it seemed that California would be the first state to provide reparations to Black residents whose ancestors were enslaved.
In 2020, California created the first state task force to study how to remedy the harms caused by slavery, an issue that had long been discussed but rarely acted upon. Three years later, that panel recommended more than 100 ideas, including $1.2 million payments for some older Black Californians.
But since then, California’s movement toward reparations has slowed as state leaders have had to decide whether to spend actual tax dollars on tangible benefits and as the public remains opposed to providing compensation.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed legislation this month to create a state agency that will determine who qualifies as a descendant of slavery. But he vetoed measures that would have given descendants preference in college admissions, home loan assistance and restitution for property seized in past years by the government through eminent domain.
“Establishing this agency is an incredibly powerful demonstration and first step, but many folks are past the window-dressing moment,” said Isaac Bryan, a Democratic assemblyman who wrote the college admissions bill.
The slow progress shows that even liberal California has softened its embrace of racial justice after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
President Trump has had a chilling effect this year as he has canceled federal diversity programs, scrutinized universities over racial preferences and discouraged the Smithsonian Institution from focusing on “how bad slavery was.”
The Supreme Court’s 2023 decision banning affirmative action has also complicated some efforts. In objecting to the bill that would give admissions preference to descendants of slavery, Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, a Republican state senator, questioned how the policy could pass constitutional muster.
And Mr. Newsom may have less political motivation than he did before as he weighs the possibility of running for president in 2028. A majority of Americans oppose taxpayer-funded reparations, and the nation as a whole is more conservative than California.
As a party, Democrats are grappling with the possibility that one reason they have lost power was that they focused too much on identity politics.
In California, civil rights activists have been divided on reparations, with some focusing on monetary restitution and others embracing a more incremental approach. Members of the California Legislative Black Caucus recognized the political headwinds and removed the term “reparations” from their legislative package. They instead called it the “road to repair” to signal that their focus was not on cash payments.
Elsewhere, Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, a Democrat, vetoed legislation this year that would have created a commission to recommend reparations for residents whose ancestors were enslaved in the state. Mr. Moore, the nation’s only current Black governor, said he wanted to deliver results for people, not “another study.”
In a 2021 Pew Research Center survey, 68 percent of Americans said the descendants of people enslaved in the United States should not be repaid in some way, a feeling largely held by respondents who were white, Asian or Hispanic. But 77 percent of Black Americans said they supported reparations.
In California, a 2023 poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, found that 59 percent of voters opposed the state task force’s recommendation to provide cash payments to descendants of slaves.
Mr. Newsom’s actions indicate that he is trying to thread the needle, recognizing where the electorate stands but looking for ways to support the movement.
“He’s behaved like most Democratic Party politicians, which is to some degree evade making a full commitment to reparations,” said William A. Darity Jr., a Duke University professor of public policy and African American studies who served as a consultant to California’s reparations task force.
Mr. Newsom has done more than any other politician by signing the bill that created the new state agency, Dr. Darity said. “And that’s somewhat telling,” he said with a chuckle.
Dr. Darity believes that it is financially impossible for state and local governments to implement reparations. Closing the racial wealth gap in California would cost more than the entire state budget, Dr. Darity estimates. When California’s reparations task force recommended payments for specific harms such as housing discrimination and mass incarceration, the totals added up to billions more than what California spends each year.
Though California joined the union as a free state in 1850, its courts enforced fugitive slave laws, and the reparations task force found that more than 2,000 enslaved people were brought to the state.
Last year, Mr. Newsom signed legislation officially apologizing on behalf of the state “for the perpetration of gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity on African slaves and their descendants.” In 2021, he signed a bill allowing Los Angeles County to return a beachfront park to the great-grandchildren of a Black couple whose property was taken through eminent domain in 1924.
But Mr. Newsom was not willing to expand such restitution this year. He vetoed legislation on Monday that would have created a statewide system for the government to compensate people whose property had been taken through similar “racially motivated” actions. He said in a veto message that the state could not afford huge costs that were not included in the state budget. (A legislative committee had estimated that compensation could cost the state as much as hundreds of millions of dollars.)
In vetoing legislation that would have given college admissions preference to the descendants of enslaved people, Mr. Newsom wrote that a new law was unnecessary because colleges already had the option to do that. He also argued that a proposal that would have designated 10 percent of funding for a state home loan program for reparations recipients was legally risky and could jeopardize federal dollars.
Akilah Weber Pierson, a Democratic state senator who leads the California Legislative Black Caucus, was the author of the measure to create a state agency to verify whose lineage dates back to slavery. Despite the governor’s vetoes, she hailed his approval of her bill as a critical first step.
“You can’t start distributing things, whether it’s housing or educational benefits or any cash payments, until you are able to establish lineage,” she said.
Still, Ms. Weber Pierson said she was well aware of the political realities.
“We are not in a position as a state where we can do everything that we would like to do,” she said. “There are some financial issues. There are currently also some political issues.”
Laurel Rosenhall is a Sacramento-based reporter covering California politics and government for The Times.
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