Gov. Gavin Newsom signed California's first-in-the-nation corporate slavery disclosure law, which reparations activists celebrate as an important victory toward broader racial repair.
California now requires large companies doing business in the state to investigate and report any historical ties to chattel slavery, after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2599 on Sept. 30.
The measure, titled the Truth in Disclosure Act and authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, covers businesses with more than $100 million in annual worldwide gross receipts that existed, or had a predecessor entity, on or before Dec. 31, 1964. Once the legislature funds the program, those firms must file sworn affidavits under penalty of perjury with the California Civil Rights Department by Jan. 15, 2029.
Fox News Digital reported that the affidavits must detail any historical involvement in the purchase or sale of enslaved people, the use of enslaved people as loan collateral, slave-related insurance policies, and other related financial transactions.
Reparations activists immediately framed the signing as momentum. Kristin Nimmers, policy and campaign manager for the California Black Power Network and the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth, called it a milestone.
"AB 2599 really represents a historic step toward corporate transparency and accountability."
Nimmers told reporters the bill starts the work of identifying who benefited from slavery and racial harm.
California was the first state to create a formal task force to study the legacy of slavery and recommend restitution measures under earlier legislation. That body spent years documenting what it described as the state's role in racial harm and issued a 1,100-page final report in 2023.
The California Black Power Network, a coalition of 48 Black-led and Black-serving organizations across 14 counties, served as an official community anchor during the task force's work and helped run listening sessions that fed into the report. Advocates now treat AB 2599 as a bridge from study to enforcement.
"The California Reparations Task Force spent years documenting the state's role in perpetuating racial harm and outlining this path toward repair."
Nimmers added that the new law helps move recommendations toward implementation. She also tied present-day wealth to the past.
"There are connections right now from slavery to current wealth of individuals and current wealth of corporations whose foundation and who built the start of their companies off of slavery and off of benefits gained from slavery."
That framing treats corporate paper trails from before 1965 as unfinished business for state regulators. The filing deadline sits more than four years out, and the whole regime still needs legislative funding before the affidavits begin.
Newsom has consistently resisted direct cash payments. The task force recommendations estimated those payouts could cost millions per eligible recipient. He turned down a broader slate of cash-focused measures backed by the California Legislative Black Caucus.
He also vetoed Assembly Bill 2186, which would have exempted future state reparations payments from California personal income tax. Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, who authored that bill, told Fox News Digital the veto was disappointing. At the same time, Newsom approved state funding for California universities to research verification methods for descendants of enslaved Americans, work aimed at eligibility for future noncash benefits.
That pattern matches earlier decisions, including when Newsom rejected a tax exemption for California reparations payments and drew pushback from Democrats who wanted faster cash relief.
AB 2599 does not pen checks. It builds a mandatory disclosure pipeline that activists say is necessary before any larger "repair." Nimmers put it in plain terms.
"We know for generations, corporations and financial institutions have really benefited from slavery and from the exploitation of Black people. AB 2599 is starting to establish a process for qualifying corporations doing business in California to really examine and disclose any historical ties they've had to slavery. This matters because we can't fully and meaningfully repair harms if we're not really willing to acknowledge and confront the truth."
She called the signing "an important, big victory" for the alliance and for work with task force members, while stressing it is "just one step in a much greater movement."
The law reaches any qualifying firm that still does business in California and can trace a predecessor to the end of 1964. That cutoff sweeps in long-lived banks, insurers, manufacturers, and other enterprises whose corporate family trees may stretch into the 19th century or earlier. Affidavits must be sworn under penalty of perjury. The California Civil Rights Department will receive the filings.
No named companies appear in the initial reporting as already preparing disclosures. Enforcement details beyond the perjury risk on the affidavits are not spelled out in the available summary. Funding still has to clear the legislature before the clock on the Jan. 15, 2029 deadline fully starts.
Elsewhere, local programs have already moved money. In Evanston, Illinois, Black residents received $25,000 housing grants aimed at historic housing discrimination. California's approach under Newsom remains disclosure-first and cash-averse at the state level.
Newsom's broader record includes sharp fights with Washington and heavy-handed state rules on other fronts, from a 25% tax on private ICE detention centers to new artificial-intelligence mandates.
Those choices keep California at the center of national policy arguments. The governor's household stays in the headlines as well, including coverage of how Jennifer Siebel Newsom handled questions about his presidential ambitions on national television.
Nimmers and the California Black Power Network plan to use AB 2599 as leverage for further implementation of task force ideas. Their argument is straightforward: map the corporate beneficiaries of slavery, then argue for repair that reaches those entities and the state itself.
"AB 2599 is really starting the work of identifying who really benefited from this racial harm and from slavery."
She also said repair must tie back to origin points "so we can address those core issues." That language keeps the door open to later demands that go well beyond affidavits.
Bryan authored the disclosure bill. McKinnor's tax-exemption measure failed at Newsom's desk. The Legislative Black Caucus wanted a larger cash package and did not get it. The practical result is a first-of-its-kind corporate history mandate paired with continued resistance to direct payments.
Businesses that clear the $100 million threshold and the 1964 predecessor test now face multi-year research, legal review, and sworn filings if they want to keep operating in the nation's largest state market. The state gains a new archive of corporate slavery-related disclosures. Activists gain a public list and a political talking point.
Newsom's own past controversies remain part of the backdrop for readers tracking his career, including reporting on how Ruby Rippey-Gibney planned to tell her side of a Newsom affair in a major magazine profile.
Separate from personal drama, the policy line is clear: California will compel large companies to excavate old commercial records while the governor still declines the multi-million-per-person cash path the task force sketched.
He has also used executive power on technology rules, including when Newsom pushed a California AI kill-switch mandate through executive order, showing the same willingness to impose first-in-nation compliance burdens.
AB 2599 fits that governing style. It creates process, paperwork, and public pressure without immediately opening the treasury for direct reparations checks. Advocates call that progress. Companies call it a new compliance risk that reaches back more than a century and a half.
Taxpayers and lawful businesses already carry California's high costs. Ordering them to audit the 1800s will not shrink a budget deficit or fix a neighborhood, but it will keep the reparations campaign in motion.
