California Gov. Gavin Newsom is facing increased pressure to use his authority to unilaterally enact proposals that would dole out billions of dollars to Black residents in reparations as a way to make amends for slavery if the state legislature doesn’t act.
The California Reparations Task Force, which was created by state legislation in 2020, is considering a proposal to give just under $360,000 per person to approximately 1.8 million Black Californians who had an ancestor enslaved in the U.S., putting the total cost of the program at about $640 billion.
The task force’s final recommendations for reparations will be submitted to the California Legislature, which will then decide whether to implement the measures and send them to Newsom’s desk to be signed into law.
According to an expert and leading reparations activist, however, Newsom, a Democrat, should be prepared to use his own power to enact such measures for the state’s Black residents if the legislature doesn’t.
NEWSOM’S CALIFORNIA PUSHES BILLIONS IN REPARATIONS PAYMENTS AS STATE FACES BUDGET DEFICIT DISASTER
“The task force is doing the grunt work of preparing final recommendations, but at the end of the day these recommendations are non-binding and still require uncompromising political will to enact remedies that will begin to address centuries of compounded harm,” Dreisen Heath told Fox News Digital. “Governor Newsom has the authority to enact these recommendations, if they are in fact aligned with the entire descendant community’s wishes, following the issuance of the final report on July 1, and should do so, if state lawmakers fail to act.”
Heath, who’s testified before Congress and for years worked as a researcher at Human Rights Watch, noted that activists have similarly been “pressing the Biden administration to use his executive authority to immediately establish a federal reparations commission given the deliberate stalling at the congressional level.”
Racial justice groups and some Democrats…
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