California to launch historic reparations office as advocates regroup from five vetoes.

Lawmakers and advocates are regrouping to determine how they will move forward in the effort to ensure reparative justice for Black Californians after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed – and vetoed – a slate of reparations measures.

One key bill signed into law was one to create the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery, which will create a structure for reparations. State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, D-San Diego, authored the legislation, which establishes the bureau and will include a division of genealogy, education and outreach, and legal affairs. Newsom also approved Senate Bill 437, which allocates up to $6 million for the California State University system to research methods for verifying descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. who wish to access benefits.

But he vetoed five other reparations measures backed by the California Legislative Black Caucus, including one that would have allowed colleges to prioritize descendants of American slavery and another to initiate a restitution process for victims of racially motivated eminent domain.

In his veto messages, Newsom said the legislation was “unnecessary” and cited fiscal challenges, respectively. In a message vetoing a bill that would have dedicated at least 10 percent of a state-backed home loan program for descendants of enslaved people, Newsom cited legal risks.

“We have been able to deliver some significant wins with the assistance of our governor,” says Weber Pierson, who chairs the California Legislative Black Caucus. “That being said, of course some of our bills were vetoed. You never get everything you want.”

Those bills were among the 16 “Road to Repair” priority measures that the caucus introduced this year based on recommendations from the state’s Reparations Task Force, a first-in-the nation commission created after the murder of George Floyd.

“A veto is never a ‘no.’ It may be a ‘no, for now.’”

After two years of study, the commission released a seminal report in 2023 detailing California’s history of enslavement and racially discriminatory policies, and issued over 100 recommendations to address the harms inflicted on Black Californians.

Since then, the Black Caucus has worked to implement those proposals. Newsom last year signed six of the caucus’ 14 priority bills, one of which required the state to apologize for perpetuating slavery.

Weber Pierson says the caucus plans to regroup to discuss its direction for 2026. “With any veto message, we need to go back and see if there’s a different way in which we can approach a solution to the problem,” she says. “A veto is never a ‘no.’ It may be a ‘no, for now.’”

Lisa Holder, a civil rights attorney and former task force member, is more focused on the wins than the losses. “This moment is historic,” she says. “African Americans have been fighting for reparations since emancipation. This is a significant step that California has now undertaken to make reparations into a concrete reality.”

CAYLA MIHALOVICH is a California Local News fellow and WENDY FRY is the California Divide reporter for CalMatters, where this story first ran.