Gavin Newsom's Diaper-Gate Deepens
- Rex Ballard
- Jul 13
- 3 min read
Newsom Awards Multi-Million Dollar Diaper Contract to Nonprofit Tied to Wife’s Board — Then Stonewalls Release of Records for Over 60 Days
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s “Golden State Start” free diaper program was pitched as a compassionate, first-in-the-nation effort to help new parents. What has unfolded instead looks increasingly like a familiar pattern: a high-profile contract awarded to a nonprofit with personal ties to the First Partner, followed by months of secrecy around the details.
Despite announcing the program on May 8, 2026, the Newsom administration has now gone more than 60 days without releasing the Baby2Baby contract or competitive bid documents — even after CBS California Investigates filed formal public records requests.
The Announcement and the “Historic” Partnership
On May 8, 2026, Newsom stood at a press conference and declared that California would provide 400 free diapers to every newborn at participating hospitals. The chosen partner was Baby2Baby, a nonprofit that would procure, warehouse, and distribute the diapers.
Baby2Baby Co-CEOs Norah Weinstein and Kelly Sawyer Patricof issued a glowing statement at the time:
“Diapers are at the core of our mission at Baby2Baby, as a shocking one in two families in this country struggles to afford them. We are incredibly grateful to Governor Newsom for his ongoing commitment to combating diaper needs in California and could not be prouder to partner on this historic initiative that will support moms and babies at their most vulnerable time.”
The Personal Connection
Almost immediately, reporters and critics noticed what Newsom did not highlight: Norah Weinstein, co-CEO of Baby2Baby, sits on the board of the California Partners Project, the nonprofit co-founded by Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
Baby2Baby later stated that Weinstein serves in a volunteer, unpaid capacity and that the California Partners Project played no role in the diaper program. Weinstein has been publicly listed on the California Partners Project board alongside the First Partner.
The Money and the Math
The financial details have been heavily disputed:
The administration claims a $6.2 million first-year contract to Baby2Baby for roughly 40 million diapers.
Including state operations costs, the total first-year price tag is approximately $7.4 million — or roughly 18.5 cents per diaper, according to CBS analysis of Department of Finance documents.
Critics initially claimed 50 cents per diaper by using the full proposed multi-year ~$20 million figure against only the first year’s diapers (a calculation CBS later corrected as inaccurate).
Retail prices for comparable diapers are often around 16 cents each.
While the exact cost-per-diaper debate continues, one fact is undisputed: the public still cannot see the actual contract to evaluate the pricing, terms, or selection process.
The Transparency Failure: 60+ Days and Counting
This is where the story shifts from policy debate to accountability failure.
CBS California Investigates filed a California Public Records Act request on May 12, 2026, asking for the executed contract, procurement documents, scope of work, and bid scoring.
Echoes of Past Controversies
This arrangement has drawn comparisons to previous instances during the Newsom administration, where nonprofits and contractors with close ties to the governor or his donors received significant state business — sometimes through no-bid or expedited processes. During the COVID-19 response, multiple investigations (including by CapRadio) documented cases in which major campaign donors and organizations with administration connections received large contracts with limited competitive bidding. The current diaper deal follows a similar pattern of personal and professional overlap between state contracting decisions and entities connected to the Newsom family orbit.
What Remains Hidden
Because the contract and scoring sheets are still being withheld, Californians cannot independently verify:
How Baby2Baby was selected over other organizations
Whether the process was genuinely competitive
The precise payment structure and performance requirements
Any provisions addressing potential waste (newborns quickly outgrow diaper sizes)
The administration maintains that the selection followed a proper Request for Information process. Without the documents, that claim remains unverified.
The Bottom Line
This is no longer primarily a story about diapers. It is a story about transparency — or the lack of it — in Sacramento.
A governor who publicly celebrated a multimillion-dollar initiative has allowed his administration to delay the release of the underlying contract and bid records for more than two months. When even CBS California Investigates is publishing timelines of bureaucratic stonewalling on a deal involving a nonprofit whose co-CEO serves on the First Partner’s board, it raises legitimate questions about how taxpayer money is being awarded and overseen.
California families deserve better than secret contracts and delayed accountability.
Shasta Unfiltered will continue to follow this story. When (or if) the Baby2Baby contract and bid records are finally released, we will review them in detail.
