By California Gov. Gavin Newsom is facing new scrutiny after his administration awarded $20 million in taxpayer funding to a Los Angeles nonprofit for a diaper-distribution program whose leadership has ties to First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s nonprofit network.
The initiative, known as Golden State Start, was rolled out shortly before Mother’s Day as a partnership between the state and Baby2Baby. The program is designed to provide free diapers to families of newborns through hospitals across California. State officials have argued that the program will use the state’s bulk purchasing power to expand access for families facing rising costs.
But, The New York Post writes, the arrangement has drawn criticism from opponents who say the program raises familiar questions about political favoritism, nonprofit contracting, and the use of taxpayer-funded NGOs to carry out policy priorities outside ordinary lines of public accountability.
That broader concern has become a recurring theme among conservative critics in Washington and the press. In June 2025, the House Oversight Committee’s Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee held a hearing titled “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild,” where Republican members and witnesses argued that government-funded nonprofits can function as political conduits when public grants flow to organizations aligned with elected officials, bureaucrats, and allied advocacy networks. The committee described the problem as one in which taxpayer funds are routed through NGOs that then help advance political or ideological priorities while maintaining the appearance of private charity.
New York Post columnist Glenn Harlan Reynolds recently made a similar argument in an April 2025 opinion piece, describing the NGO network as a “parallel government” that allows Democratic officials and allied bureaucracies to keep advancing policy goals even when voters reject them at the ballot box. Reynolds argued that these groups often operate in a gray zone between private charity and government program, receiving public money while helping implement priorities on immigration, foreign aid, social policy, and advocacy that elected officials might struggle to defend directly.
Former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, framed the same pattern at the time as a “Democrat Circle of Life,” arguing that government officials direct money to aligned nonprofits, whose leaders then donate to Democratic campaigns or move through the same political ecosystem. “This intricate web of connections is how elected and appointed Democrat officials and allied NGOs work together,” Greene said, according to the committee’s hearing summary. “Federal agencies fund the NGOs and the NGOs shape the agencies’ behavior. It can be hard to tell where the government ends and the NGO begins. The non-profits essentially serve as an arm of the government.”
Sine critics say the California arrangement fits the same basic concern: public money moving to a politically connected nonprofit whose leadership overlaps with the governor’s family network.
Norah Weinstein, who has served as co-CEO of Baby2Baby since 2011 with Kelly Sawyer Patricof, also sits on the board of the California Partners Project, a group co-founded by Siebel Newsom that promotes women’s leadership and gender equity.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton criticized the program Saturday, arguing that the state’s spending does not appear cost-effective.
“If you take the number of diapers they’re planning to send out and the amount of money that he’s spending on it, it’s 50 cents for each one, which is like 100 times more expensive if you just bought them in Costco,” Hilton said. “But where’s the money coming from? Us.”
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Hilton said the program reflects a broader problem with how state officials use taxpayer money.
“Instead of taking our money, putting into some scheme that benefits their friends and cronies, 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?” he said.
California has already approved $7.4 million for the effort, with another $12.5 million proposed in the 2026–2027 budget. Together, the funding would represent a major state investment in expanding diaper access for newborns.
Critics have also pointed to the family and political connections surrounding Baby2Baby’s leadership. Patricof is married to film producer Jamie Patricof, whose father, Alan Patricof, has been a major Democratic donor with ties to the Clinton political network. Some critics have described Baby2Baby as more politically connected than a typical charity, though those claims have not been independently verified.
Newsom’s office has defended the program as an innovative policy aimed at helping families at the beginning of a child’s life.
Despite the criticism, Newsom has promoted Golden State Start as “a first-in-the-nation program to provide free diapers to all new babies born in California.”
It’s not the first time that Newsom has appeared to help his donors through the power of his office. In 2024 the California governor gave a “bread exemption” to the minimum wage hike happening in the state.
Bloomberg described details of Newsom’s apparent corruption.
Behind closed doors, he urged the governor’s top aides to reconsider whether fast-casual chains such as Panera should be classified as fast food, according to people familiar with the discussions, who asked not to be named because the talks were private.
While that plan wasn’t adopted, the Service Employees International Union, a labor group that was the driving force behind the bill, decided to accept a narrower carve-out as the talks progressed — one that would only apply to restaurants operating bakeries. That position was adopted as a means of winning the governor’s support for the legislation, said a person with knowledge of the discussions. The rationale was the governor’s longstanding relationship with a Panera franchisee, the person said.
Over the years, Flynn’s donations to Newsom’s political campaigns have included $100,000 to fight off a conservative-led recall effort and $64,800 to support the governor’s reelection in 2022. Flynn has been known to tout his relationship with Newsom, according to people familiar with the matter, with one saying the fast-food entrepreneur has said he can reach the governor via text.
A business connection goes back to 2014, when Flynn acquired a Napa Valley resort managed by Newsom’s hospitality company. Newsom, who was then serving as California’s lieutenant governor, reported an undisclosed amount of income from Flynn’s company that year. The management contract began under the previous owners, the Getty family trust, and Flynn decided not to renew it about a year into his ownership, said a person familiar with the decision.
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