California Steps Back from the Ledge: ACR Project Convinces Governor Newsom to Veto SB 1050
Background
In August, after California’s Senate quietly killed the Assembly’s effort to amend the Constitution to authorize racial discrimination the Governor okayed, we warned its officials that a set of four related bills remaining under consideration were illegal and unconstitutional. We promised that, if it ignored these warnings and went forward with its identitarian crusade, groups like ours would see them soon to block these anti-Constitutional measures from taking effect. On the final day its final session, the legislature responded, (quietly) killed two of those bills, while passing the other two for consideration by Governor Newsom.
Our Letter
On September 16th, we sent an additional letter to Governor Newsom. You can read it below. It highlighted how the legislature’s decisions on these various bills gave rise to a new, fatal flaw in SB 1050 (one of those on his desk awaiting signature). SB 1050 would have tasked a single, state-wide office to investigate and rectify past examples of “racially motivated eminent domain.” That office would determine the present-day fair market value of all such properties and certify that the one-time owner was “entitled to the return of the taken property[,]” the transfer of “other publicly held property of equal value,” or payment of “financial compensation.” Its determinations would bind state and local governments, subject only to judicial review.
SB 1050 would assign this role to the Office of Legal Affairs within the California American Freedman Affairs Agency. The new problem? One of the bills the legislature killed through inaction (SB 1403) would have created the California American Freedman Affairs Agency. With SB 1403 having died unpassed, SB 1050 would have delegated this enormous and enormously consequential set of responsibilities to an office that does not exist.
Our letter argued that this made SB 1050 a nullity, if not a cruel joke. We argued that California should not declare work sufficiently important to delegate this kind of sweeping authority, while delegating it to a fictitious office. We suggested that Governor Newsom could not in good faith sign into law a statute requiring a non-existent agency to perform this role.
Veto
Yesterday, Governor Newsom agreed. Neatly mimicking our language, he vetoed SB 1050, with this explanation: “this bill tasks a nonexistent state agency to carry out its various provisions and requirements, making it impossible to implement.”
Conclusion
The California legislature may still feel in a future session that it remains worthwhile to revisit the sufficiency of the compensation received by property owners who suffered historical takings. If so, it will have the chance to do so in a more thoughtful, Constitutional manner. If it takes that chance, it will presumably task entities that actually exist with the job. These are good things. The ACR Project has again delivered results, without resorting to litigation.