Gov. Newsom Finds Sneaky Backdoor Way to Advance Reparations

Yet on September 30, 2026, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2599 by Assemblyman Issac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights), titled the “Truth in Disclosure Act,” the bill being touted as the “first-in-the-nation law requiring large companies to disclose historical ties to chattel slavery.”

Here is what AB 2599 does:

• It applies to businesses doing business in California with more than $100 million in annual worldwide gross receipts that existed (or had a predecessor entity) on or before December 31, 1964.
• Covered companies must search their records and submit sworn affidavits (under penalty of perjury) detailing any involvement by the company or related entities in buying/selling enslaved people, using them as loan collateral, providing related loans or insurance, or similar transactions.
• The California Civil Rights Department is to create a public, searchable digital database of the disclosures.
• First filings are due by January 15, 2029 (or later if the platform is not ready), contingent on legislative appropriation for implementation.
• The bill was a priority of the California Legislative Black Caucus, authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, and is framed by supporters as advancing corporate accountability and transparency as part of broader reparations efforts.

Newsom has described it as requiring searches for ties “going back to 1849,” including insurance policies on enslaved people and their use as collateral) and making the results public, stating that “accountability… starts with the truth.”

Imagine the records search these long-time businesses must engage in, having had no involvement with or ties to any slavery more than six decades ago.

Last year, there were 16 reparations bills active in the legislature. One of the bills, AB 57, titled “California Dream for All Program” for descendants of formerly enslaved people, proposed to give at least 10% of funds from California Housing Finance Agency’s home purchase assistance program to qualified individuals who are descendants of formerly enslaved people.

AB 57 was vetoed by Governor Newsom.

Notably, Democrats blocked a bill in 2025 to make purchasing sex from 16-17-year-olds a felony, but approved that ridiculous reparations bill.

The Globe has been saying for several years now that the stupid people are in charge of everything in California, and Democrats prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt with the bills they support and reject.

Democrats also prove that they will say and do anything for money, because no actual human with a soul could advocate for policies that harm children the way purschasing sex from teenagers does.

In 2024, almost no reparations bills were passed – nothing of consequence, anyway.

In a recent podcast on “This is Gavin Newsom,” the Governor interviews Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, discussing “How DEI Failed, and Can We Fix America’s Racial Legacy?”

“This is a bill that requires large companies that operated before 1965 to search their records for ties to slavery going back to 1849 and then we make it public. These are insurance policies on enslaved people. Human beings used as collateral, quite literally as collateral for loans. Accountability, as Bryan said, starts with the truth,” Newsom said.

California lawmakers have been trying to pass reparations of any kind. The Legislative Black Caucus claims reparations are about “its push for justice and equality.” Thus far, they’ve only been able to pass rather minor bills, authorizing analyses of methodologies for determining an individual’s descendancy, illegally collecting and storing demographic information gathered separately from employees’ personnel records – likely a violation of Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative, which is a ban on affirmative action. Prop 209 was passed by California voters in 1996, and prohibits discrimination or preferential treatment by the state, public universities, public employment, or other public entities, and banned affirmative action policies.

Nearly all reparations bills would violate Prop 209.

This latest bill actually builds on earlier reparations attempts and baby steps approved:

In 2020, Newsom signed legislation creating the California Reparations Task Force, following the death of George Floyd. Its 2023 report made extensive recommendations; estimates of potential costs for various harms have run into the hundreds of billions.

In 2024, Newsom signed bills including a formal state apology for California’s historical role in perpetuating slavery and its legacy, AB 3089, plus other priority measures from the Legislative Black Caucus.

In October 2025, Newsom signed SB 518, creating the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery, under the state’s Civil Rights Department, to help administer potential programs, handle genealogy and verification, education, and related functions.

He also signed SB 437, providing up to $6 million for California State University research on verifying descendant status. At the same time, he vetoed several other related bills (including ones for college admissions preferences, eminent domain restitution processes, home loan set-asides, and tax exemptions for future reparations payments), citing fiscal concerns, legal risks, and other issues.

It’s death by a thousand cuts.

As the Globe has repeatedly reported, California entered the Union in 1850 as a free state and never legalized “chattel slavery.” 

Direct cash payments have not been enacted – yet. Gov. Newsom has consistently taken a cautious approach to high-cost or direct financial restitution measures while approving agency-creation, disclosure, study, and symbolic bills, which is what makes this bill feel more like a backdoor approval of reparations.

Notably, in June, “the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division moved to intervene in a lawsuit challenging a program by the City of Evanston, Illinois, that distributes cash payments and financial assistance for housing solely to black persons, and their descendants, and not to similarly situated persons of other races,” the U.S. Department of Justice announced. “The United States’ proposed complaint in intervention alleges that the city’s actions violate the Equal Protection Cause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fair Housing Act.”

“Under the pretext of paying reparations for events more than 100 years ago, the City of Evanston has chosen to distribute millions of dollars in cash and housing benefits to people because of the color of their skin or the color of the skin of their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon. “There are sound ways for a city to remedy past discrimination or direct resources to its most vulnerable citizens and neighborhoods. Simply handing out money based on race, however, is not the answer. It is race discrimination, pure and simple. And it is illegal.”

Expect to see similar actions if actual reparations payments of any kind are approved in California.