Gov. Newsom's office says the no-bid deal was "competitive," the records weren't delayed, and our reporting is false. The state's own database, deadlines, and the Legislature's budget bills say otherwise. Here's the point-by-point review.
Updated on: July 20, 2026 / 3:56 PM EDT / CBS News California
On July 17, six hours after we published our investigation into the state's no-bid Baby2Baby diaper contract, California posted the records we had been requesting for 66 days. That was at 5:34 p.m.
Thirty minutes later, an email from the governor's office arrived, "reaching out to clarify misrepresentations and factual inaccuracies regarding the Golden State Start initiative." It requested corrections and called parts of our reporting "demonstrably false." The office's statements are quoted in full below.
We take correction requests seriously. So we went back through every claim in the email and checked it against the record. That includes the governor's own budget documents , the Legislature's bill texts and analyses , the Legislative Analyst's Office , and the records the state itself released .
Where the record supported additional details, we updated the story and said so. Where the office's claims don't match the record, we're showing our work below.
We asked the governor's office for a response before our story was published. They didn't respond until after.