Sixty days. That’s how long Gavin Newsom has stonewalled a legally required public records request asking one simple question: how did Baby2Baby get a multimillion-dollar state diaper contract?
The answer, based on everything we already know, is obvious. And that’s exactly why he won’t release it.
Here’s the setup. In May, Newsom announced “Golden State Start” — a program directing California hospitals to hand out 400 free diapers to new parents, funded by taxpayers and administered by a nonprofit called Baby2Baby. It was packaged as a pro-family affordability initiative. It was actually a sweetheart deal dressed up in diaper packaging.
The conflicts of interest are stacked on top of each other like a bad comedy sketch. 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 longtime Democratic mega-donor. Among all the child and mother-focused nonprofits in the largest state in America, this particular one — the one connected to the Governor’s wife and a major Democratic money family — somehow rose to the top of the pile.
CBS News Sacramento’s investigative team asked the obvious questions and filed a public records request to see the contract and the competitive bidding records. California law requires the state to release these documents. The Newsom administration waited 24 days just to decide whether it would bother responding at all. Now, 60 days in, the reporters have received nothing. Zero. Not a single page.
And while all of this is happening, California Democrats are advancing legislation to give state agencies even more time to respond to public records requests. The transparency party is trying to legislate its way out of being transparent.
Here is the part that should make every California taxpayer’s blood pressure rise: this isn’t a close call. It isn’t a complicated legal question. The public has a right to know how their money was awarded, who competed for the contract, and what criteria were used to select the winner. That’s not journalism overreach. That’s the minimum accountability a functioning democracy requires of its government.
Newsom can’t produce the records because the records will almost certainly confirm what every objective observer already suspects: this contract was wired from the start, competitive bidding was either nonexistent or purely performative, and taxpayer money went to a nonprofit specifically because of its connections to the Governor’s household.
The DOJ investigation already underway into Newsom and Jennifer Siebel Newsom may already have these documents. In the electronic age, you don’t bury a contract — you just create a paper trail that prosecutors can subpoena.
Gavin Newsom built his entire political brand on the promise that he was different. Competent. Transparent. Ready for the national stage.
The diaper contract says otherwise. And the clock is ticking.
