Mercury Public Affairs has Astroturfed Before

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Earlier in the year, Gutierrez and his allies, including a handful of state legislators, held a protest outside the Capitol in favor of a bill that would give the Public Utilities Commission more power to review proposed telecommunications mergers. The bill, however, never was introduced.

TracFone currently is embroiled in an administrative-legal dispute with the PUC over about $20 million in unpaid telephone service fees that fund programs for low-income customers.

TracFone recently acquired Irvine company Simple Mobile and now has more than 21 million U.S. customers. It accuses Two Countries of violating California law by operating as an unregistered lobbyist or acting as a captive organization being funded by secret donors. The complaint alleges that Two Countries' activities are guided by Mercury Public Affairs, whose Sacramento office engages in lobbying, public relations and political strategy.

Mercury spokesman Roger Salazar said his firm has done no lobbying for Two Countries.

TracFone spokesman Jose Fuentes said his company suspects that some of Slim's Me

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE

MERCURY PUBLIC AFFAIRS 

TURFS ALL THE TIME

SEE BELOW

ETHICS

Was The Now Former Mercury Public Affairs Associate ‘Thrown Under the Bus’?

By Tonya Garcia on June 15, 2012 2:50 PM

Once it was revealed that an associate at Mercury Public Affairs, a firm that reps Walmart, had posed as a USC student to attend a closed press conference hosted by Warehouse Workers United, she was swiftly sacked.

Commenters on our story expressed skepticism over the firm’s claim that Harnett didn’t first consult with her managers before taking action.  Today, Gawker wonders whether “Harnett was being scapegoated.” And Gawker links to others on Twitter (we found a few more as well) who have expressed a fair amount of doubt that a junior staffer would take such a great risk on her own.

To recap,Walmart is trying to open a new store in Los Angeles’ Chinatown. Mercury is helping with that effort. A WWU rep told Gawker that Harnett went to the closed press conference, signed in to the media list under a false name, and conducted an interview with a warehouse worker. She then came back on a separate day and handed out business cards, saying she worked with the retailer.