California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed legislation creating a new state agency to oversee programs for descendants of enslaved Americans, advancing his long-running push for reparations policies amid ongoing fiscal and political challenges.
The measure, Senate Bill 518, establishes the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery within the California Civil Rights Department. The agency will be led by a deputy director appointed by the governor and divided into three divisions: Genealogy, Education and Outreach, and Legal Affairs.
Its responsibilities include verifying eligibility based on lineage, managing public education efforts about historical discrimination, and ensuring legal compliance as reparations initiatives expand.
The bureau’s implementation will depend on future legislative appropriations, though the law permits it to receive funding from federal, state, and private sources. It also includes privacy protections for genetic and personal data collected through the program, restricting public access to that information.
The new law builds on earlier actions under Newsom’s administration. In 2020, he signed AB 3121, which created a task force to study and recommend reparations proposals for Black Californians.
Formed following the George Floyd protests, that panel later recommended direct payments exceeding $1 million per eligible person and proposed additional measures, including repealing Proposition 209, the state’s ban on affirmative action.
It should be noted that California was never a slave-holding state.
Though Newsom initially distanced himself from the idea of direct cash reparations, describing the issue as “about much more than cash payments,” he has since signed several measures advancing related initiatives. These include a formal state apology for slavery in 2024 and legislation offering non-cash benefits such as homeownership and education assistance.
The creation of the new bureau follows earlier legislative setbacks. Disagreements and proposed amendments within the California Legislative Black Caucus delayed the establishment of a dedicated reparations office last year, drawing criticism from activists who accused lawmakers of yielding to political pressure.
Newsom ultimately vetoed a prior version of the bill, citing the absence of an agency capable of administering the program — a gap Senate Bill 518 is designed to fill, Breitbart News reported.
Under the new framework, the bureau’s Genealogy Division will be responsible for certifying individuals as descendants of enslaved persons based on specific lineage criteria, including ancestry tracing to people emancipated or classified as contraband before 1900.
Certified individuals would then become eligible for future reparations-related state programs.
The Education and Outreach Division will focus on public awareness campaigns addressing issues such as redlining, gentrification, and housing discrimination, while the Legal Affairs Division will provide counsel to ensure the bureau’s programs comply with state law.
California’s reparations debate has evolved over the past five years, progressing from preliminary studies and public hearings to the formation of task forces and commissions aimed at promoting racial equity. The state’s Racial Equity Commission, created by Newsom in 2022, has drawn on the reparations task force’s recommendations and continues to develop a comprehensive statewide “Racial Equity Framework.”
Although California entered the Union as a free state in 1850, supporters of the reparations initiative argue that the state nevertheless contributed to racial inequities through decades of discriminatory housing, education, and employment policies.
Critics, however, have questioned both the feasibility and the cost of such programs. Estimates from the state’s reparations task force placed the potential price tag at more than $800 billion—over twice California’s annual budget—and recent polling indicates that a majority of voters oppose direct cash payments as a form of reparations.
Newsom and his policies also seem to be losing favor with longtime Democrats in his own state.
For years, Marc Benioff was seen as San Francisco’s big-hearted billionaire — the tech magnate who poured millions into local causes and preached compassion for the city’s homeless.
But 2025 appears to have ushered in a different Benioff, The New York Times reported.
The benevolence remains, but the liberal leanings have vanished. In a wide-ranging interview this week, Benioff said he “avidly supports” President Donald Trump and believes the National Guard should be deployed to San Francisco — an idea that city leaders once considered unthinkable.
