Sixty days. That’s how long California taxpayers have been waiting for an answer to a simple question: how did one well-connected nonprofit land a multimillion-dollar state diaper contract?
And the Newsom administration is still not talking.
The program in question is called “Golden State Start,” announced in May. The idea is straightforward enough: California hospitals hand out 400 free diapers to new parents, funded by taxpayers and administered through a nonprofit called Baby2Baby. Newsom pitched it as a pro-family affordability measure. Critics see something else entirely.
The conflicts of interest are hard to miss. Baby2Baby co-CEO Norah Weinstein sits on the board of a nonprofit run by First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The other co-CEO, Kelly Sawyer Patricof, is married to a film producer whose father is a prominent Democratic mega-donor. Out of every child and family-focused nonprofit operating in the largest state in the country, this particular organization, the one with direct ties to the Governor’s wife and a major Democratic fundraising family, ended up with the contract.
As originally reported, CBS News Sacramento’s investigative team filed a public records request to see the contract itself and any competitive bidding documentation. California law requires the state to produce these records. The Newsom administration took 24 days just to decide whether it would acknowledge the request at all. Now, 60 days later, journalists have received nothing. Not a single document.
Making things worse, California Democrats are simultaneously pushing legislation that would give state agencies even more time to respond to public records requests. The transparency crowd is actively legislating its way out of transparency.
This is not a gray area. The public has a legal right to know how taxpayer money was awarded, which organizations competed for it, and what criteria determined the winner. That is not an unreasonable demand. It is the baseline expectation of any government that claims to be accountable.
The refusal to produce these records speaks volumes. If the selection process was clean, competitive, and above board, releasing the paperwork would put the controversy to rest immediately. The continued stonewalling suggests the documentation would do the opposite.
A DOJ investigation already underway involving Newsom and Jennifer Siebel Newsom may eventually surface these records through subpoena. Government contracts leave paper trails, and in the digital age those trails rarely disappear completely.
Newsom has spent years positioning himself as a competent, forward-thinking leader ready for a bigger national stage. His pitch has always centered on the idea that he governs differently, more openly, more responsibly than his political opponents.
A diaper contract awarded to his wife’s associates, followed by 60 days of stonewalling on legally required documents, tells a different story.
The clock is still running.