California businesses will soon have to disclose their historical and financial ties to slavery, thanks to a Democrat-backed bill Governor Gavin Newsom signed last week.
The Truth In Disclosure Act forces certain companies to swear “under penalty of perjury” that they have investigated whether they or their predecessors “bought or sold persons subjected to slavery” or engaged in other slavery-related transactions. The disclosures — required of any company that was in business on or before December 31, 1964, and has more than $100 million in annual worldwide gross receipts — will be made available to the public in an online database.
California Democratic Assemblymember Isaac Bryan authored the bill and introduced it at the start of the year. It passed along party lines, with 60 Democrats voting in support.
While the Truth In Disclosure Act also addresses efforts “to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from its direct supply chain for tangible goods offered for sale,” critics of the bill fear this legislation is part of a larger statewide reparations initiative.
Newsom in 2020 created the nation’s first reparations task force, which recommended the state “disrupt the mental health crisis and county jail,” “adopt a K-12 Black Studies Curriculum,” and “provide property tax relief to African Americans, especially descendants, living in formerly redlined neighborhoods, who purchase or construct a new home.”
California lawmakers in the past have proposed giving black Americans upwards of $1.2 million in lifetime restitution. The Pacific Research Institute estimated the cost of reparations to exceed $2.8 trillion, which would cause the economy to decrease in size by 11% and substantially increase state taxes.
In 2024, the California Legislative Black Caucus advocated for a series of bills it deemed important to black Californians, including a formal state apology for slavery, which Newsom signed. The apology, coauthored by Democratic Assemblymember Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr., “affirms California’s recognition of the harms caused by chattel slavery and issues a formal apology, which will be memorialized with a plaque in the State Capitol.”
“As we confront the lasting legacy of slavery, I’m profoundly grateful for the efforts put forward by Chair Wilson and the members of the California Legislative Black Caucus,” Newsom said in a 2024 press release. “The State of California accepts responsibility for the role we played in promoting, facilitating, and permitting the institution of slavery, as well as its enduring legacy of persistent racial disparities.”
California was admitted to the Union in 1850 as a free state. Slavery was prohibited.
Over the years, California issued laws to notify the public of organizations’ ties to slavery. In 2000, then-Governor Gray Davis signed a law that required insurance companies licensed to do business in California to disclose insurance policies issued by them or their predecessor firms to slaveholders. These policies “provided coverage for damage to or death of their slaves.”
Across the country, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he agreed with his prior statement, saying the city must “repair” damage caused by the slave trade. In an interview with journalist Charles M. Blow on “The Root” in July, Mamdani said he would consider whatever the city’s Commission on Racial Equity decides, including cash reparations. The committee is expected to release its findings next summer.
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