California Governor Gavin Newsoms much-hyped Golden State Start diaper giveaway, rolled out with glossy rhetoric about birthing parents and affordability, is rapidly morphing into yet another symbol of opaque governance and insider favoritism in Sacramento.
According to RedState, the program was unveiled just before Mothers Day as a pro-family initiative directing hospitals to hand out 400 free diapers per newborn, all branded with Californias imprimatur. Behind the photo ops and talking points, however, sits a multimillion-dollar state contract awarded to Baby2Baby, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit with conspicuous personal and political ties to the Newsom household.
The arrangement raises obvious questions that the administration has shown little interest in answering. Why this particular nonprofit among the many child- and mother-focused organizations in California, and was there any genuine competitive bidding at all?
The conflicts of interest are hard to ignore. Baby2Baby co-CEO Norah Weinstein serves on the board of one of First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsoms nonprofit entities, while co-CEO Kelly Sawyer Patricof is married to film producer Jamie Patricof, son of longtime Democrat mega-donor Alan Patricof.
As my colleague Ward Clark wisely opined, The whole thing stinks like a dead woodchuck under the porch, in Georgia, in August. That pungent assessment appears to be shared by CBS News Sacramentos investigative unit, which began pressing the administration for answers shortly after the announcement.
CBS reporters filed a California Public Records Act request seeking the Baby2Baby contract and the bidding documents that would show which other nonprofits, if any, were considered. More than 60 days later, the investigative team has received nothingbupkisfrom the state, despite clear statutory requirements for timely disclosure.
California's delayed release of its Baby2Baby contract is casting a shadow over the state's new Golden State Diaper program, CBS California Investigates reported. Two months after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a controversial multimillion-dollar state diaper contract with Baby2Baby, a nonprofit with existing ties to the Newsom administration and the First Partner, Californians still have not been allowed to see the contract or competitive bid records behind the deal to manufacture and deliver millions of California co-branded free diapers to new parents.
The network further noted that the delay comes despite repeated requests by CBS California Investigates and despite California law requiring the state to release these records. In other words, the same administration that never tires of lecturing the rest of the country about transparency and democracy is stonewalling basic public scrutiny at home.
The Newsom administration waited 24 days to decide whether it would even allow the public to see the records, but continues to delay releasing the Baby2Baby contract and competitive bid records that the governor announced more than two months ago, CBS reported. At the very moment this diaper contract is being slow-walked, lawmakers in Sacramento are advancing legislation to give state agencies even more time to respond to public records requests.
That legislative push would further weaken one of the few tools ordinary Californians still have to hold their government accountable. It is difficult to see this as anything other than an attempt to codify delay and obfuscation as standard operating procedure.
CBS summarized the situation bluntly in a segment promoted on social media. Remember Diaper-Gate? We fact-checked the diaper math. Now, we're fact-checking the process. Nearly two months after the announcement, California still hasn't released the Baby2Baby contract or bid records. Now, lawmakers want to give agencies even more time to respond to public records requests.
For a governor who has spent years positioning himself as a national progressive standard-bearer, the optics could hardly be worse. As RedState has previously reported, Diaper-Gate and its embedded conflicts of interest may be the least of the Newsoms problems.
Thanks to Newsoms soon-to-be-sentenced former chief of staff Dana Williamson and Democrat lobbyist and powerbroker Alex Podestawho reportedly wore an FBI wirean investigation was opened by the Biden Department of Justice into the governor and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Despite Newsoms efforts to cast himself as a victim, claiming he is being targeted by President Donald Trump because of his supposed presidential ambitions, the timeline undercuts that narrative.
The investigation was reportedly opened in 2021, long before Trump's second term, RedState noted, making the governors blame-shifting sound more like political theater than fact. So, any presidential aspirations appear to be going up in smoke and may burn as long as that toxic Boyle Heights warehouse fire.
Just like that horrific fire, this indeed stinks to high heaven. While CBS may continue to get the bureaucratic two-step from the governors office, federal investigators may already have the documents that Sacramento is trying so hard to keep out of public view.
This is the electronic age, so trying to bury a contract while being under active investigation looks like obstruction of justice to me. For a state already buckling under high taxes, rampant homelessness, and regulatory excess, the spectacle of a diaper giveaway program entangled in cronyism and secrecy only reinforces the sense that Californias ruling class treats public money as a private slush fund.
Keeping the popcorn popped as this is starting to look like possible curtains for Gavin and Jennifer. Whether the Baby2Baby contract ultimately proves to be a smoking gun or merely another example of Sacramentos casual contempt for transparency, the episode underscores why many conservatives argue that limited government is not just a philosophical preference but a practical necessity.
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