SAN FRANCISCO — Not every political operative can celebrate their 50th birthday with the governor of America’s most populous state during a pandemic.

Not every political operative is Jason Kinney.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is weathering a ferocious backlash for his decision to attend a celebration for Kinney on Nov. 6 at the French Laundry, a bucket list-level dining icon in Napa County. After the private dinner was exposed by the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsom said that while the outdoor meal did not violate coronavirus restrictions, he showed poor judgment in attending. He reiterated that point in a public apology on Monday, saying it went against the spirit of state rules as coronavirus cases surge across California.

While the meal amplified criticism of Newsom’s coronavirus management, with the governor parrying accusations of hypocrisy, it also cast a brighter spotlight on Kinney and the dual clout he wields in the insular world of California politics.

The longtime California Democratic politics fixer has had a hand in both winning campaigns and influencing policy. He was chief speechwriter for Gov. Gray Davis, served for years as a senior strategist for Senate Democrats and has long counseled Newsom politically. He continues to advise Newsom on politics even as his lucrative, newly launched lobbying firm works on bills that could land on Newsom’s desk.

Kinney is not the first California political operative to blur the line between politics and policy. The doors between campaigns, administrations and Sacramento’s lobbying corps have long swung open for people with contacts and experience to leverage.

“He’s got some deep roots in government. Like any successful lobbyist, he uses those to his advantage because he’s smart,” said Steve Maviglio, a Democratic operative who has also worked both for the California government and for the interest groups that seek to sway it. “Any special interest hires the best talent they can get and that was the decision they made with Jason.”

The governor and Kinney have a relationship extending back decades. In apologizing for attending, Newsom referred to Kinney on Monday as “a friend that I have known for almost 20 years.”

But the fact that Kinney, a registered lobbyist, got an intimate audience with Newsom immediately raised questions about conflicts of interest. Newsom said he paid for his meal, so it did not qualify as a lobbying payment.

“Newsom’s got to bend over backwards and not give him any favors,” said Bob Stern, the architect of California’s campaign finance laws. “People are going to be watching what Newsom does in terms of Kinney clients now.”

While Kinney worked on Newsom’s transition team and has continued to counsel the governor, he has also launched a lobbying shop, Axiom Advisors, whose client list included major California players that spend heavily to influence state policy. Axiom reaped $10.9 million worth of lobbying work in 2019-20, the first legislative session during which Newsom was governor.

Some of Axiom’s clients highlight Kinney’s overlapping roles. Kidney dialysis firms DaVita and Fresenius paid Axiom $475,000 this session. During the same period, Kinney earned $90,000 from the California Democratic Party, which spent money to pass a labor-backed initiative regulating kidney dialysis. DaVita and Fresenius were the measure’s principal opponents.

Not all Axiom clients are major corporations; some are just desperate to get through to the governor for survival. Theme parks have been trying to get the governor’s ear this year to reopen attractions during coronavirus. Three smaller amusement park operators — Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, San Diego Coaster Co., and Santa Monica Amusements — hired Axiom on Oct. 1, right as Newsom officials were discussing reopening rules. The state ultimately issued guidelines last month that allowed the Boardwalk and other smaller parks to operate, though the recent coronavirus surge has forced the closure of rides again.

The single most remunerative client for Axiom in the last two years has been Marathon Petroleum, giving Kinney’s firm $525,000 worth of business. Marathon is a member of a powerful oil industry organization that battled proposals to ban hydraulic fracturing; Newsom called on the Legislature earlier this year to send him a fracking ban.

“The thing that is so powerful about this luxury dinner story is that Newsom also risked the lives of Californians by violating his own Covid recommendations to party with the same oil lobbyist,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Center, which is planning a lawsuit over the state’s issuance of oil and gas well permits. “There’s just so many ways that ordinary people are suffering such incredible pain,” she added, “and it just shows his hypocrisy to be partying with an oil lobbyist in the middle of this. It’s just inexcusable.”

This would not be the first time Kinney has faced scrutiny over his work. In 2013, the California Fair Political Practices Commission fined Kinney $12,000 for failing to disclose lobbying activity despite having communicated with lawmakers on behalf of a developer.

After Kinney served as a spokesperson for Proposition 64, the 2016 Newsom-championed ballot initiative to legalize recreational cannabis use, prominent cannabis companies hired Kinney’s political firm. Some critics assailed it as an example of cashing in on insider influence, with cannabis companies more likely to patronize Kinney given his connections to the future governor.

An Axiom spokesperson for Kinney did not comment for this story.

Despite wide condemnations of Newsom’s presence at the dinner, several lobbyists and strategists said Kinney could still reap the benefits. Conflict-of-interest concerns aside, the episode demonstrates that Kinney retains Newsom’s ear during a time of extremely limited in-person access to people in power. The buzz this weekend among lobbyists was how Kinney couldn’t have asked for better advertising of his close ties to Newsom.

“All publicity is good publicity,” Maviglio said, and reporting on the dinner “revealed his presence in Newsom’s inner circle. That is very important to many interests in Sacramento. I worked with Jason for five years, and he’s had a lot of negative stories on him, and he seems to be doing quite well.”

SAN FRANCISCO — Not every political operative can celebrate their 50th birthday with the governor of America’s most populous state during a pandemic.

Not every political operative is Jason Kinney.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is weathering a ferocious backlash for his decision to attend a celebration for Kinney on Nov. 6 at the French Laundry, a bucket list-level dining icon in Napa County. After the private dinner was exposed by the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsom said that while the outdoor meal did not violate coronavirus restrictions, he showed poor judgment in attending. He reiterated that point in a public apology on Monday, saying it went against the spirit of state rules as coronavirus cases surge across California.

While the meal amplified criticism of Newsom’s coronavirus management, with the governor parrying accusations of hypocrisy, it also cast a brighter spotlight on Kinney and the dual clout he wields in the insular world of California politics.

The longtime California Democratic politics fixer has had a hand in both winning campaigns and influencing policy. He was chief speechwriter for Gov. Gray Davis, served for years as a senior strategist for Senate Democrats and has long counseled Newsom politically. He continues to advise Newsom on politics even as his lucrative, newly launched lobbying firm works on bills that could land on Newsom’s desk.

Kinney is not the first California political operative to blur the line between politics and policy. The doors between campaigns, administrations and Sacramento’s lobbying corps have long swung open for people with contacts and experience to leverage.

“He’s got some deep roots in government. Like any successful lobbyist, he uses those to his advantage because he’s smart,” said Steve Maviglio, a Democratic operative who has also worked both for the California government and for the interest groups that seek to sway it. “Any special interest hires the best talent they can get and that was the decision they made with Jason.”

The governor and Kinney have a relationship extending back decades. In apologizing for attending, Newsom referred to Kinney on Monday as “a friend that I have known for almost 20 years.”

But the fact that Kinney, a registered lobbyist, got an intimate audience with Newsom immediately raised questions about conflicts of interest. Newsom said he paid for his meal, so it did not qualify as a lobbying payment.

“Newsom’s got to bend over backwards and not give him any favors,” said Bob Stern, the architect of California’s campaign finance laws. “People are going to be watching what Newsom does in terms of Kinney clients now.”

While Kinney worked on Newsom’s transition team and has continued to counsel the governor, he has also launched a lobbying shop, Axiom Advisors, whose client list included major California players that spend heavily to influence state policy. Axiom reaped $10.9 million worth of lobbying work in 2019-20, the first legislative session during which Newsom was governor.

Some of Axiom’s clients highlight Kinney’s overlapping roles. Kidney dialysis firms DaVita and Fresenius paid Axiom $475,000 this session. During the same period, Kinney earned $90,000 from the California Democratic Party, which spent money to pass a labor-backed initiative regulating kidney dialysis. DaVita and Fresenius were the measure’s principal opponents.

Not all Axiom clients are major corporations; some are just desperate to get through to the governor for survival. Theme parks have been trying to get the governor’s ear this year to reopen attractions during coronavirus. Three smaller amusement park operators — Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, San Diego Coaster Co., and Santa Monica Amusements — hired Axiom on Oct. 1, right as Newsom officials were discussing reopening rules. The state ultimately issued guidelines last month that allowed the Boardwalk and other smaller parks to operate, though the recent coronavirus surge has forced the closure of rides again.

The single most remunerative client for Axiom in the last two years has been Marathon Petroleum, giving Kinney’s firm $525,000 worth of business. Marathon is a member of a powerful oil industry organization that battled proposals to ban hydraulic fracturing; Newsom called on the Legislature earlier this year to send him a fracking ban.

“The thing that is so powerful about this luxury dinner story is that Newsom also risked the lives of Californians by violating his own Covid recommendations to party with the same oil lobbyist,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Center, which is planning a lawsuit over the state’s issuance of oil and gas well permits. “There’s just so many ways that ordinary people are suffering such incredible pain,” she added, “and it just shows his hypocrisy to be partying with an oil lobbyist in the middle of this. It’s just inexcusable.”

This would not be the first time Kinney has faced scrutiny over his work. In 2013, the California Fair Political Practices Commission fined Kinney $12,000 for failing to disclose lobbying activity despite having communicated with lawmakers on behalf of a developer.

After Kinney served as a spokesperson for Proposition 64, the 2016 Newsom-championed ballot initiative to legalize recreational cannabis use, prominent cannabis companies hired Kinney’s political firm. Some critics assailed it as an example of cashing in on insider influence, with cannabis companies more likely to patronize Kinney given his connections to the future governor.

An Axiom spokesperson for Kinney did not comment for this story.

Despite wide condemnations of Newsom’s presence at the dinner, several lobbyists and strategists said Kinney could still reap the benefits. Conflict-of-interest concerns aside, the episode demonstrates that Kinney retains Newsom’s ear during a time of extremely limited in-person access to people in power. The buzz this weekend among lobbyists was how Kinney couldn’t have asked for better advertising of his close ties to Newsom.

“All publicity is good publicity,” Maviglio said, and reporting on the dinner “revealed his presence in Newsom’s inner circle. That is very important to many interests in Sacramento. I worked with Jason for five years, and he’s had a lot of negative stories on him, and he seems to be doing quite well.”

OAKLAND — California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered widespread closures of indoor operations by tomorrow as the state faces its fastest surge in cases since the pandemic began, pulling what he called the “emergency brake” on 94 percent of residents.

Newsom said he was compelled to act by a case surge that is “simply without precedent in California’s pandemic history.”

“Bottom line is, we’re moving from a marathon to a sprint,” Newsom said.

That has led Newsom to accelerate the process, ensuring 41 of California’s 58 counties will have to shut churches, indoor dining and gyms until the state deems them safe for operation. That includes most of the state’s heavily populated counties, including most of the San Francisco Bay Area that previously had forestalled the same coronavirus spread seen elsewhere.

Instead of waiting for Tuesday to move counties to new tiers, Newsom made the change Monday and said the emergency measure allows for counties to move into shutdowns after only one week of rising infection spread. He said the state will no longer wait until each Tuesday to impose new restrictions on counties.

Some counties will drop multiple tiers to land in the most restrictive tier, Newsom said, and their timeline to comply will be compressed from 72 hours to 24 hours.

“We are sounding the alarm,” Newsom said. “California is experiencing the fastest increase in cases we have seen yet — faster than what we experienced at the outset of the pandemic or even this summer. The spread of Covid-19, if left unchecked, could quickly overwhelm our health care system and lead to catastrophic outcomes.”

While the state’s approach so far has allowed for variation among counties, Newsom said a spike in cases has prevailed across the state rather than in isolated areas and has hit every age group. “We are seeing community spread broadly,” he said.

Not just that.

It could also prove a distraction at a time when Biden is trying to push his own legislative agenda through a narrowly divided Congress.

Yet, if Democrats were to suddenly say “never mind,” it would not only be an embarrassing about-face, it would also infuriate people such as Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), the head of the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee.

“In a perfect world, we could have mercy — but this is not a perfect world,” said Pascrell, who has helped lead the push to spring Trump’s returns. “Even if he is no longer the president, there needs to be some accountability.”

“We have got to follow through on this.”

With Trump making noises about running again in 2024, moreover, Democrats may be loath to abandon the option.

Biden has not said how he would approach the issue, and a spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Democrats have been in court for more than a year, suing to enforce a subpoena for Trump’s documents under a 1924 law allowing the heads of Congress’s tax committees to see anyone’s returns.

The Trump administration has refused, arguing Democrats do not have a legitimate reason for seeking the filings. The case has not even gotten to the substance of House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal’s complaints though, with the two sides battling over whether he even has the right to bring the White House to court in the first place.

Separately, several House committees and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. also are tied up in court trying to get Trump’s tax returns and other financial records from his banks and an accounting firm for different investigations.

But Biden’s Treasury secretary could give the returns to Neal without anyone outside the government even knowing. In August, as Neal was fighting to stave off a primary challenge, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats would release the president’s records if Biden won.

“Then the world will see what the president has been hiding all this time,” she said.

In an email, a Neal spokesperson said he remains focused on his court case.

Some aren’t convinced Democrats will continue to press the issue next year because, by then, the politics of releasing Trump’s returns could be very different.

He will be a private citizen again, already facing major investigations by the New York state government. It may not only look like Democrats are piling on by forcibly releasing Trump’s tax records — it would also be highly unusual.

Though he has defied a decades-old tradition of presidents releasing their records, Trump is not legally required to produce them and Congress has only released private tax information about anyone on extremely rare occasions.

It could also mean a lot of work for Democrats.

They have a long list of questions about Trump’s finances and have requested a huge amount of information about his taxes. But investigating them would be a major undertaking, and it’s unclear if that’s how Democrats want to spend a good part of Biden’s first year in office.

“It would not surprise me if they decided the goals of the Biden administration would not be furthered by pursuing this,” said Jim Wetzler, a former congressional tax aide and one-time New York state tax commissioner.

But many Democrats have long complained Neal has not been aggressive enough in his pursuit of the president. They say they still want to know plenty more about Trump’s finances than was disclosed in recent reports by The New York Times, which were based on leaked tax return information.

And they argue they still don’t understand how vigorously the IRS examined Trump’s returns as part of its annual, legally required audits of the president.

“Americans need to know that all taxpayers who are audited by the IRS get the same partial review — no one is above the law,” said Pascrell.

Moreover, House Democrats want to pass legislation that would require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, and it may look odd to push that if they don’t release Trump’s information.

There’s yet another possibility: Even once he’s out of office, Trump could potentially file a new suit to prevent congressional Democrats from getting his returns. He successfully sued to prevent them, at least temporarily, from taking advantage of a New York state law authorizing officials there to share Trump’s New York returns with Neal.

Though Neal has shown little interest in using that law, Trump’s lawyers argued the Massachusetts Democrat could change his mind without warning and get the president’s returns before he has a chance to act.

A federal court sided last year with Trump, saying officials had to give him an opportunity to go to court if Neal seeks the returns. Trump could potentially go back to that playbook with the Treasury Department to try to prevent it from acting on a request from Congress.

“Based on his past behavior, I’d guess, yes, he probably would sue,” said Kerry Kircher, a former general counsel for the House of Representatives.

“It’s what he does.”

In another tweet later Sunday night, Atlas wrote that he “NEVER was talking at all about violence. People vote, people peacefully protest. NEVER would I endorse or incite violence. NEVER!!”

Atlas, a physician with no expertise in infectious diseases or epidemiology, has won favor in the White House in recent months by advocating against coronavirus restrictions and downplaying the disease’s threat.

He has also publicly attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, accusing the nation’s top infectious disease expert of stoking fears about the pandemic for political purposes ahead of the presidential election earlier this month.

On Monday morning, Fauci rebuked his fellow White House coronavirus task force member for encouraging an uprising in Michigan.

“I totally disagree with it, and I made no secret of that,” Fauci told NBC’s “Today” show. “I mean, I don’t want to say anything against Dr. Atlas as a person, but I totally disagree with the stand he takes. I just do, period.”

But Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar appeared to show support for Atlas when asked about the tweet in an interview.

“I’d say to everybody, be guided by science and data, and the data supports keeping our schools open,” Azar told “Fox & Friends,” saying it was “ridiculous” to close places of learning.

Whitmer, a Democrat who was recently the target of a foiled kidnapping plot, has come under repeated attack by the White House for her public health measures throughout the pandemic — with Trump invoking her personally at campaign rallies and his supporters calling for her imprisonment.

In April, Trump memorably tweeted that aggrieved residents should “LIBERATE” Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia — all states where Democratic governors had declared stay-at-home orders.

Michigan and Washington are the two latest states to issue new coronavirus restrictions as caseloads continue to soar across all parts of the country. The most recent record of daily cases was last Friday, when the U.S. notched more than 177,000 new infections.

Over the weekend, the U.S. surpassed 11 million Covid-19 cases in total, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, and more than 246,000 Americans have died thus far from the disease.