(NewsNation) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom declined to publicly endorse recommendations, including ones calling for reparation payments, made by a state task force, according to media reports.
“Dealing with legacy is about much more than cash payments,” Newsom, a Democrat, said to KCRA in a statement. “Many of the recommendations put forward by the task force are critical action items we’ve already been hard at work addressing.”
These “action items” cited by the governor included “breaking down barriers to vote,” and bolstering resources to address hate,” as well as law enforcement and justice reforms.
On Saturday, a nine-member reparations task force that first convened nearly two years ago OK’d a list of proposals for how California could compensate and apologize to Black residents for generations of harm caused by discriminatory policies. Recommendations included the creation of a new agency to provide services to those descended from enslaved people, as well as calculations on what the state owes them.
Economists have projected in some estimates that California could owe upward of $800 billion in reparations, although the figure in the draft report released by the task force is far lower than that, according to The Associated Press.
“Reparations are not only morally justifiable, but they have the potential to address long-standing racial disparities and inequalities,” U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said.
The task force also approved the issuance of a public apology acknowledging the state’s responsibility for past racist wrongdoings, although the panel noted any apology made by lawmakers must “include a censure of the gravest barbarities” carried out on behalf of California officials.
This includes a condemnation of former California Gov. Peter Hardeman Burnett, a white supremacist who encouraged laws to exclude Black people from the state.
Although he did not completely back them in his statement, Newsom called the task force’s findings a “milestone” in the state’s “bipartisan effort to advance justice and promote healing.”
“This has been an important process, and we should continue to work as a nation to reconcile our original sin of slavery and understand how that history has shaped our country,” Newsom said in the KCRA statement. “This work must continue.”
The reparations task force’s final report to lawmakers is officially due on July 1. The Legislature will then determine how, if at all, to act on the suggestions.
