California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has come under pressure to use his authority to give the state’s Black residents billions of dollars in reparations should the state legislature fail to act.
There is a proposal before the California Reparations Task Force, established by state legislation in 2020, to give each Black Californian with an ancestor enslaved in the U.S. $360,000. Estimates for the program’s total cost suggest it could cost as much as $640 billion or more.
When the task force has concluded, it will send its recommendations to the state’s legislature. The legislature will decide whether or not the proposals should be implemented and will send whatever it greenlights to Newsom’s desk for signing.
However, speaking to Fox News Digital, Dreisen Heath — an expert on and activists for reparations — shared that the California Governor should be prepared to use his authority to enact legislation providing Black residents with reparations.
Heath explained that while the task force was doing the “grunt work,” their recommendations weren’t binding, requiring Newsom to have the political fortitude to “enact remedies that will begin to address centuries of compounded harm.”
The researcher and reparation activist added that Newsom has the “authority” to enact the task force’s recommendations and should do so if the state legislature doesn’t act.
Heath also pointed out that the urging to use executive authority to enact reparations also extended to President Joe Biden, highlighting that activists have been calling on Biden to use his authority to set up a “federal reparations committee” considering Congress’s “deliberate stalling.”
