{"id":2816,"date":"2011-05-12T15:16:53","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T23:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/?p=2816"},"modified":"2017-08-17T19:10:14","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T03:10:14","slug":"lobbygate-dennis-herrera-fires-alex-tourk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/2816\/lobbygate-dennis-herrera-fires-alex-tourk\/","title":{"rendered":"Lobbygate: Dennis Herrera Fires Alex Tourk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"273\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3MmbholBDDQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/author\/luke\/\">Luke Thomas<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>May 12, 2011<\/p>\n<p>Following the resignation of GroundFloor Public Affairs founder Alex Tourk from two high-profile campaigns this week, a second video <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/2804\/video-dennis-herrera-and-alex-tourk-discuss-inappropriate-lobbying\/\">in as many days<\/a> has surfaced on YouTube parodying a conversation between City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Tourk.<\/p>\n<p>In the video, Herrera asks for Tourk&#8217;s resignation over alleged violations of campaign ethics laws.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->&#8220;I need you to resign as my campaign consultant,&#8221; Herrera says to Tourk.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What the hell!&#8221; Tourk responds. &#8220;You told the press that I didn&#8217;t actually lobby you illegally.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes, but nobody believed that,&#8221; Herrera retorts.<\/p>\n<p>Revelations about Mr. Tourk&#8217;s lobbying activities were first reported by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2011\/05\/05\/BARM1JBSUU.DTL\">San Francisco Chronicle<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110518043605\/http:\/\/www.baycitizen.org:80\/government\/story\/more-city-officials-drawn-stow-lake\/\">BayCitizen.org<\/a> website.<\/p>\n<p>According to the reports, Mr. Tourk allegedly violated a campaign ethics law when he lobbied two campaign clients, Mr. Herrera and District Attorney George Gasc\u00f3n, on behalf of several of Tourk&#8217;s\u00a0lobbying clients.<\/p>\n<p>The law was passed in 2004 to prevent pay-to-play politics.\u00a0Tourk was then Mayor Gavin Newsom&#8217;s chief of staff at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Tourk <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20120625205157\/http:\/\/www.baycitizen.org\/blogs\/pulse-of-the-bay\/tourk-resigns-gascon-campaign\/\">resigned<\/a> from the Herrera and Gasc\u00f3n campaigns Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>From the video author:<\/p>\n<p><em>Dennis Herrera, candidate for SF Mayor, has fired his campaign consultant Alex Tourk because of the controversy around Tourk illegally lobbying Herrera. But it&#8217;s common practice for San Francisco campaign consultants to profit by selling access to the elected officials they work with.<\/p>\n<p>This video is based on this Matier and Ross<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2011\/05\/10\/BAS91JEFI2.DTL\">article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the video, Herrera asks for Tourk&#8217;s resignation over alleged campaign ethics law violations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257,222,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-entertainment","category-news","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lobbygate: Dennis Herrera Fires Alex Tourk - 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