The Dems got themselves mau-mau’ed by “activists” into an absurd scheme that none dare openly oppose. The first one of them to call it stupid will be destroyed by the others.
To be fair, I don’t think it was Newsoms idea. This was “grass roots” from SF.
Article indicates the reparations study idea came up in the CA legislature as a result of the George Floyd riots in 2020. California being California, any reasonable plan proposal efforts are going to be highjacked by activists and jazzed up with bling. In this case, the reparations study group was packed with black liberal activists and academics. So the resulting recommendations are about what would be expected.
(To be frank, the San Francisco recommendations read more like starting amounts in a lawsuit negotiation than anything else.)
If California’s constitution is structured similarly to the U.S. Constitution, fiscal appropriation power rests with the legislature, not the executive. The governor probably has the power to redirect/realign already appropriated funds but not initiate new appropriations. One might look to the state legislature for sanity in this situation but, again, this is California and the legislature presently has and has had a Democrat supermajority for some time. Sacramento has been the source of a lot of “woke” dream legislation, so it’s not a far stretch of the imagination to expect them to work real hard at fulfilling this one as well.
Unless the California government has some secret gold mines, any “reparations” are going be raised through general taxes.
Once California voters (of all races) realize this, things may change.