Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Jennifer Siebel Newsom

6. Jennifer Siebel Newsom

The wife of the governor – referred to as the First Partner of California – is Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker, former actress and adviser to the governor. That makes her worthy of this list, without doubt, and we’ve moved her up from last year, based on a common theme of the people we talked to. She’s even more engaged now and committed on key issues, led by abortion rights, following the SCOTUS’ decision to repeal Roe v. Wade. “I’m outraged that girls will grow up in a country where girls and women will have fewer rights than my generation had,” she said in a widely viewed video. The governor consults her and pays close attention to her advice on an array of issues: early education, gender equity, toxic masculinity and childhood health care, among others. Siebel Newsom, who has an MBA from Stanford University, grew up in Marin County. As a filmmaker, she wrote and directed the documentary Miss Representation, which detailed the media’s flawed depiction of powerful women.

Updated Aug. 9, 2022