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This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

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USC Student Makes a Fool of Assemblyman Mike Davis

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Do you live in Mike Davis' 48th District? Bigger map here

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USC's digital online news website Neon Tommy began a new series today called Democracy in Action where reporters visit field offices of L.A.'s state legislators. "Our goal is to see what goes on in a two-hour period on a routine day," they explain. For the first post, Jessica Flores visited Assemblyman Mike Davis' field office, finding that the simplest of questions were the hardest to find answers to. Perhaps this is just one of the many symptoms why Sacramento is fucked:

I am visiting his district office to understand how he engages with such an ethnically diverse constituency. Davis is in Sacramento, but I end up talking to him on the phone three times after I stumble upon a question he has trouble answering: "Do you have a staff member who speaks Korean?" Our conversations grow increasingly difficult as he first gives misleading information about having a staff member who speaks Korean, then avoids the subject by turning to question my impartiality, then finally tells me an accurate answer.

To be fair, Flores saw multi-lingual pamphlets and the quarterly meetings and his Latino and Korean Advisory Councils "as steps towards engaging distinct ethnic interests in his district." She was just a bit confused why her question became such and issue and, well, a story.

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