California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law Wednesday requiring large companies doing business in the state to scour historical records and publicly disclose slavery-era transactions, advancing California’s broader reparations effort through a new corporate “accountability” mandate.
Newsom’s office referred Fox News Digital to an Oct. 1 interview with civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, in which the governor signed the bill on camera and framed the measure as an effort to establish accountability through public disclosure.
“This is a bill that requires large companies that operated before 1965 to search their records for ties to slavery going back to 1849 and then we make it public. These are insurance policies on enslaved people. Human beings used as collateral, quite literally as collateral for loans. Accountability, as Bryan said, starts with the truth,” Newsom said.
Assembly Bill 2599, authored by Democratic Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, applies to businesses with more than $100 million in annual worldwide gross receipts that existed, or have a predecessor company that existed, on or before Dec. 31, 1964. Once funded by the Legislature, covered companies must submit affidavits under penalty of perjury verifying searches for records involving the purchase or sale of enslaved people, their use as loan collateral, slave-related insurance and other transactions.
The law also calls for the records to become publicly accessible through a state digital platform. For companies doing business in California as of Jan. 1, 2028, the first affidavits are due by Jan. 15, 2029, or later if the state’s platform has not yet been developed.
Bryan framed the measure as an effort to expose corporate wealth tied to slavery while presenting the bill before lawmakers in June.
“For centuries, private corporations across the country benefited from chattel slavery,” Bryan said during a Senate Standing Committee on Public Safety hearing. “They benefited from the economic wealth transfer of free labor.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Bryan for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
The law came three years after California’s first-in-the-nation Reparations Task Force issued more than 100 recommendations for addressing the effects of slavery and discrimination. The task force examined potential monetary compensation alongside policy changes involving housing, education, policing, health and economic disparities.
Newsom previously stopped short of endorsing the task force’s proposed direct cash payments. In a 2023 statement to Fox News Digital, the governor said addressing slavery’s legacy extended beyond sending checks to eligible residents.
“Dealing with that legacy is about much more than cash payments,” Newsom said at the time.
CASH PAYMENTS ARE NOT ‘RULED OUT’ AS CALIFORNIA COUNTY OFFICIALS PUSH REPARATIONS FOR BLACK LOCALS
The task force’s report cited JPMorgan Chase as one historical example, noting the banking giant apologized in 2005 after research found two predecessor banks had accepted approximately 13,000 enslaved people as collateral for loans and eventually took ownership of about 1,250 people when borrowers defaulted.
The legislation faced opposition from several insurance industry groups, including the American Council of Life Insurers and American Property Casualty Insurance Association. California has required insurers to research and disclose slavery-era insurance policies since 2000, and the state maintains those records through its Department of Insurance.
The California Senate Judiciary Committee’s analysis of the bill said five insurance industry groups opposed the bill, including the American Council of Life Insurers, the Association of California Life and Health Insurance Companies and the American Property Casualty Insurance Association. The committee analysis summarized their opposition as focused on potential duplication of slavery-era disclosures insurers were already required to make under a 2000 law.
“AB 2599 appears to require reporting that substantially overlaps with the work already completed pursuant to SB 2199 and codified in CA INS 13810,” the opponents said.
