Gavin Newsom Gave $20 Million in Taxpayer Money to a Nonprofit Run by Someone Who Sits on His Wife’s Board

May 12, 2026 Cat2, Politics
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Gavin Newsom just handed $20 million of your money to a nonprofit run by a woman who sits on his wife's board of directors.

Now he's calling it a "first-in-the-nation" child welfare program and daring you to ask questions.

There's a specific number in this story that will make your blood boil – and it's not $20 million.

The Deal Newsom Doesn't Want You to Do the Math On

The program is called "Golden State Start."

Newsom announced it just before Mother's Day, promising free diapers to every newborn born in a California hospital.

The delivery vehicle is Baby2Baby, an LA-based nonprofit whose co-CEO Norah Weinstein sits on the board of Jennifer Siebel Newsom's organization, the California Partners Project.

Jennifer co-founded the California Partners Project.

Her husband just cut Baby2Baby a contract worth $20 million in taxpayer money.

$7.4 million has already been approved.

Another $12.5 million is proposed in the 2026-2027 state budget.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton did the math nobody in Sacramento wanted done.

"If you take the number of diapers they're planning to send out and the amount of money that he's spending on it," Hilton told the New York Post, "it's 50 cents for each one – which is like 100 times more expensive if you just bought them in Costco."

One hundred times more expensive than Costco.

Hilton didn't stop there.

"Instead of taking our money, putting into some scheme that benefits their friends and cronies," he said, "why don't they let us just keep more of our money in the first place so we can decide how to spend our money?"

The Board Seat Nobody Mentioned in the Press Release

Weinstein isn't the only connection worth examining.

Weinstein has co-led Baby2Baby since 2011 alongside co-CEO Kelly Sawyer Patricof.

Patricof is married to film producer Jamie Patricof, whose father Alan Patricof is a longtime Democratic mega-donor with financial roots running back to the Clinton political machine.

This is not a random Los Angeles nonprofit.

It is connected to the Newsoms personally, to the California Partners Project institutionally, and to decades of Democrat donor networks through family ties.

Newsom's office did not respond when the New York Post asked for comment.

Baby2Baby did not respond either.

The governor who never misses a press conference had nothing to say about who runs the organization receiving $20 million of your money.

This Is Not the First Time

Gavin Newsom has run this play before.

Federal tax filings reviewed by the Daily Mail in March revealed that Jennifer Siebel Newsom's own nonprofit – The Representation Project – collected donations from the same corporations that held hundreds of millions in California state contracts.

PG&E, the utility blamed for multiple California wildfires, donated $358,000 to Jennifer's nonprofit while receiving $323.8 million from the state.

AT&T donated $185,000 to the same organization while receiving $260.4 million in California contracts.

The pattern is the same every time.

A nonprofit connected to the Newsom personal and political network receives public attention or public money.

The Newsoms promote the program as historic and compassionate.

Critics ask who chose the vendor and why.

Nobody in Sacramento answers.

What Gavin Wants You to Think

Newsom is calling "Golden State Start" a landmark achievement in child welfare.

"A first-in-the-nation program to provide free diapers to all new babies born in California," he told reporters – the same reporters who didn't ask who runs Baby2Baby or who sits on which board.

He's positioning this as proof that California leads while the rest of America lags.

Californians are paying 50 cents per diaper through a connected nonprofit when the same diaper costs a fraction of that in bulk at Costco.

That gap – between what the state pays and what any family pays on their own – is where the Newsom network lives.

Gavin Newsom has been running California for years on the premise that he knows better than you how to spend your money.

The diaper math says otherwise.

Sources:

  • Lowell Cauffiel, "Report: Newsom's $20 Million Diaper Deal Reveals Sweetheart Relationships Using Taxpayer Dollars," Breitbart, May 10, 2026.
  • Josh Christenson, "Gavin Newsom under fire over $20M diaper deal tied to wife-linked nonprofit network," New York Post, May 9, 2026.
  • California Partners Project, Board of Directors, calpartnersproject.org, accessed May 2026.
  • "Governor Newsom launches first-in-the-nation program providing free diapers for all new parents," Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, May 8, 2026.