Gavin Newsom’s diaper deal benefited a nonprofit run by his wife’s friend — and there was no true “competitive” process, as he claimed.
The whole diaper deal stinks.
The California Post reported this weekend that the governor’s office had finally released the terms of the deal in a classic late Friday night “document dump.”
The state is to pay $6.2 million to the Baby2Baby nonprofit, whose co-CEO, Norah Weinstein, also sits on the board of the California Partners Project, a nonprofit founded by “First Partner” Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
The money is supposed to pay for 400 diapers for each baby born in the state — at least, those born in participating hospitals. That reportedly will cover 25% of the babies born in California.
But the cost of the program has raised eyebrows, with critics saying that it would be cheaper to buy the diapers directly at a store, rather than going through a nonprofit with overhead costs and other expenses.
The public deserves to know what happened, especially given ongoing federal investigations into the Newsoms, reportedly targeting the First Partner’s taxes.
The California Department of Health Care Access and Information says it sought information on 15 providers before awarding the diaper contract.
But in reality, Baby2Baby was approved after a provision was tucked into a budget bill that was nearly 900 pages long. The project was exempted from competitive bidding laws and other key safeguards against corruption and mismanagement.
So Gavin Newsom and the First Partner have some tough questions to answer.
The governor deserves special scrutiny, after making claims about corruption the focus of his constant social media campaign against President Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in American history,” Newsom claimed on June 30.
He said the same thing on June 11. And he made similar claims last year.
So if Newsom is going to make a habit of calling other people corrupt, then presumably everything he does should be transparent and above board.
He should not be sending taxpayer money to cronies at nonprofits that charge taxpayers more than goods and services actually cost. He should not claim to be transparent when he waits months to release the terms of a deal. And he should not claim to have used a “competitive” bidding process when he did not.
As Newsom heads out on the campaign trail, he will be followed by the stench of this dirty diaper deal.
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