Democracy In Action: Mike Davis Turns Testy
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As part of the Democracy in Action series, Neon Tommy reporters visited district
offices of some California legislators. (Creative Commons licensed)
This is the first in a series of surprise visits by Neon Tommy staff
writers to the field offices of some of L.A.'s state legislators. Our
goal is to see what goes on in a two-hour period on a routine day.
Sometimes, as in the case of Assemblyman Mike Davis, the conversation takes
unexpected turns.
California Assemblyman Mike Davis's 48th district in Los Angeles spans one of the most diverse areas in the country, encompassing the largest U.S. Koreatown, the historically African American South Los Angeles, and the Mexican and Salvadorian communities increasingly growing in those ethnic enclaves. Davis represents nearly 500,000 people -- 50 percent are Latino; 30 percent, African American; and 11 percent , Asian, according to Census figures.
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.
Neon Tommy Visits A Calif. Legislator
Who: Assemblyman Mike Davis
What: Democrat, 48th District
Where: Field office: 700 State Drive, Los Angeles
When: 1 p.m. - 3 p.m., Sept. 29
Opening the glass door to Davis' Exposition Park office, I walk into a small waiting area that has two side desks full of multi-lingual pamphlets and mailers. One wall is adorned with recognition plaques, another a brown-and-white sketched picture of Davis in his youth. A woman in the office area behind the reception desks calls out.
"Yes, can I help you?"
I peek to the side of the reception desk and into a back room, and see a woman with slick black hair tied in a ponytail, wearing thick black-rimmed glasses. Her name is Tesa and she is friendly.
I walk through the door that leads to the office area where the field representatives work. I explain that I am a journalism student at USC Annenberg writing an article on public engagement in the Assemblyman's office.
"You don't have an appointment?" she asks.
"No. Our assignment was not to have an appointment, but to just see how the office interacts with the public on a normal day," I said. By mentioning an "assignment," I suddenly feel more like a student than a reporter. In retrospect, I wish I wouldn't have mentioned an assignment because it became a line Davis questioned in later conversations.
Before I ask if I can talk to Davis, she gets him on the phone.
"There is a young lady here from USC Annenberg that wants to observe the office. No, she doesn't have an appointment, that was part of the assignment ... He wants to speak with you," she says as she hands over the phone.
In our first call we talk about his recently formed Latino Advisory Council and Korean Advisory Council. He sounds thrilled to chat about his efforts to engage these communities and talks in general terms about the role both advisory councils play in his decisions.
"Do you have anyone in your offices who speaks Spanish and Korean?" I ask out of curiosity.
He says yes and refers me to Raul Carlos, a newly hired field representative in his office.
Carlos was hired this summer and organized the first Latino Advisory Council meeting in early September. He invited 30 Latino community members to join who he knew from his work with the LAPD Latino Forum. He explains the Latino constituent concerns, from education to health care, as he reads his typed meeting minutes with me. I ask if I can have a copy of the minutes.
"I would have to ask the member," he says.
During the 30 minutes I am speaking with Carlos, Davis calls twice. First, he wants to speak to me and ask my professor's name, and second to speak to Carlos and ask how our conversation is going.
I wrap up my conversation with Carlos and head to the lobby to wait expectantly for any of the 20 or so constituents Davis says his office sees on a normal day. I want to observe the staff interacting with constituents, but no one walks in during the hour I wait in the lobby.
As I wait, I look into the conference room and notice R&B singer Baby Face posters stacked against the wall next to a glossy yellow and purple poster for the Living Legends Award displaying Davis and Chaka Khan. After about an hour of sifting through the materials in the waiting room, the Ebony Magazine, Dia a Dia newspaper, the bilingual metro brochures, and a Korean magazine, I get up ready to leave the office. I hear Carlos' voice in the other room and head over to thank him and I suddenly realize I didn't ask him who the staff member who speaks Korean is.
"Do you speak Korean?" I ask.
"Ha, I'm learning," he jokes.
I turn to Tesa, "Do you have anyone in the office who speaks Korean?"
"Yes in our satellite office," she says.
"What is the person's name who speaks Korean?" I ask.
No response. Carlos repeats the question, because he thinks she doesn't hear me.
She seems a little frustrated at my questioning: "I just let you know that we had somebody. I will have to call Mr. Davis before I give you that information," she says.
At that very moment Davis calls the office and she asks him if they have a Korean speaker in any of the offices. She hands me the phone, "He wants to speak to you."
"We have Korean liaisons," he says curtly.
"Do they work in the satellite office?" I ask.
He doesn't answer the question, and instead talks about how they have publications in Spanish and Korean.
Then he switches gears. "Now I want to understand why you have not asked me any questions about African Americans. You have asked me about Latinos and Koreans, but you haven't asked me what kind of work I've done with the African American community this year," says Davis.
I say that I know he has done programming for the African American community. I also mentioned that four of the five staff members in his office are African American.
"Have I?" "Like what?" He says.
At this point, I am increasingly skeptical why he won't answer such a simple question and I feel uncomfortable that he turned the conversation to question me.
I point to the Living Legends Award that he just presented to Chaka Khan.
He says that that award is not African American specific and doesn't focus on African American's at large.
Not African American specific? It's given to celebrate Black History Month and its recipients have all been African Americans. I don't challenge him on this point. I just listen as he continues to circumvent the question at hand. I also wonder why he's acknowledging that he hasn't had programming for the African American community this year.
"Who is your professor?" he asks again. "What is his number?"
I tell him he can look it up online and that I don't have it on hand.
He then asks me if I know the demographics of the voters supporting him.
I tell him I know the census numbers. I can picture him shaking his head in disapproval on the other end of the phone as he says, "You have to look at more than the Census Bureau numbers and look at voter demographics." He mentions some political pollster who could give me those numbers.
I try to stay firm on the question. "That is interesting, but I would like to know if there are any Korean speakers in your office because I want to understand how this office handles Korean-speaking callers."
"We have not had calls that that I am aware of," he says. Still, he does not directly answer my question.
He then asks me several questions that I can't answer: How many Koreans are at USC? What is the political affiliation of people in your program? How many Koreans are in your program?
Then he goes back to voter demographics. "You need to look at the majority of the people who voted for me. Why is there a disinterest in African Americans?"
He goes on and says, "When you come in with a partial question ..."
I cut him off. "I have no bias, I'm just curious."
He then more directly answers the question "If Korean speakers call we would have to refer them to community people and partners in the district."
"I don't know what kind of study this is and why USC would ask these questions," he says.
"USC did not give me any questions to ask."
I clarify that this is not a "study" and that I am writing an article about what I observe and our conversations.
"It is just a question I was curious about," I say to assure him that I am not trying to trick him with my question.
Then Davis and I have breakthrough.
"I had Amy Nam. I will eventually have another one," he says. Finally, I think. Why did he need to avoid telling me that to start with?
He continues the rest of the conversation saying he wants to talk about the issues that affect all in his community. I completely drop the Korean-language question. We chat about Prop. 13, public education, and diversity among California judges for the next 15 minutes in our conversation.
As we wind down and I thank him for his time, he reverts back to the Korean-language matter, suggesting he was still troubled by the question.
"We had a Korean before and we will have a Korean after and we will work hard to address everyone's concerns, even if we have nobody in the office but me."
It was as if, after several conversations and after several attempts to give me non-answers, he finally formed an intelligible response to what I thought was a simple question. Perhaps when you are dealing a district that is increasingly Latino and Korean, perceived language barriers to elected representatives could mean a lost endorsement or even a lost election. But, I saw the multi-lingual pamphlets and the quarterly meetings with advisory councils as steps towards engaging distinct ethnic interests in his district. That could have been my lead, but it isn't. Davis' attempt to evade the reality that he has no Korean speaking staff made a fact that might have been buried in a story, something worth investigating.
