But he's seen enough disastrous budget years now to know how readily -- and wrongly -- many people blame the state's problem on illegal immigration.

But illegal immigration didn't get California into its budget fix, and full federal payment -- an unlikely prospect -- wouldn't get us out.

Playing to the anti-immigrant chorus, even in a quest for federal money, undermines the message every Californian must hear: We cannot currently pay for those programs that we consistently list as our top priorities, including first-rate education, transportation and public safety, and it's not because of the size of the undocumented population. It's because of our appetite for services, the structure of our tax system and the dysfunction of our government.

He has been an outstanding spokesman in the fight to combat greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, dueling with the deniers on the weekend talk shows and touting California's policy progress around the globe.

But perhaps because his career has put him so directly in touch with the popular imagination, he also gives voice to the common wisdom of the day -- even if that wisdom is wrong, as it is when it assigns the state's troubles to public workers, welfare recipients and illegal immigrants.

Felony charges have been filed and an arrest warrant issued for a well-known Orange County political activist suspected of committing election and voter registration fraud, the California secretary of State's office announced Wednesday.

Investigators in the agency's election-fraud unit said Nativo ["Larry"] V. Lopez, 57, of Santa Ana leased office space in Boyle Heights and registered to vote using that address although he lived with his family in Orange County. They also say Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Assn., cast an illegal ballot in L.A. in the 2008 presidential primary.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office, which is working with the secretary of State, charged Lopez with four felonies: fraudulent voter registration, fraudulent document filing, perjury and fraudulent voting. A warrant was issued for his arrest and bail was set at $10,000. The offenses carry penalties of up to three years in prison.

This smells of racism.

As a 3rd-generation Angeleno and Latino, people like Nativo are disgusting. When my grandparents immigrated here legally, they waited their turn and did it the proper way. They also made a point to learn English and try to assimilate as much as possible.

A study released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center has documented a change in trend: After years of rapid growth, illegal [alien invasion] is slowing down in California, with the state's share of the nation's estimated 11.9 million [illegal aliens] dropping to 22% from 42% in 1990, the study showed.

The state still has the largest concentration of illegal [aliens] in the nation, with 2.7 million -- a figure that has nearly doubled since 1990.

But, in a trend that began with California's recession in the 1990s, more migrants are bypassing the state for other areas of the country. The number of illegal [aliens] outside the nation's six traditional "first stop" states of California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and New York has increased sevenfold, to nearly 5 million in 2008 from 700,000 in 1990, according to Jeffrey S. Passel, the study's coauthor and a Pew Center senior demographer.

Nearly half of the households headed by [illegal aliens] have young children, twice the rate of native-born households. And nearly three-fourths of their children were U.S.-born citizens.

The children of [illegal aliens] make up about 10% of California students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

The study, co-written by D'Vera Cohn, a Pew Research Center senior writer, found that three-quarters of illegal immigrants are Latino, mostly from Mexico. On average, they tend to work in low-skilled jobs such as farming and construction, earn markedly less than the median national income and have lower educational levels than U.S.-born residents.

For instance, 47% of illegal immigrant adults ages 25-64 have less than a high school education compared with 8% for U.S.-born residents. The immigrants' 2007 median household income was $36,000, compared with $50,000 for the U.S.-born, and they did not attain markedly higher incomes the longer they lived in the United States, unlike legal immigrants, the study found.

The nation's top two labor federations announced a framework Tuesday for comprehensive immigration reform, setting aside differences with the hope of pushing legislation through this year.

The agreement, supported by the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win federation, supports the legalization of the nation's 12 million [illegal aliens] and the formation of an independent commission to analyze the labor market's needs and assess shortages for the admission of future foreign workers. The unions oppose any new guest worker programs that would allow employers to bring foreigners in on a temporary basis.

[Illegal alien advocate] groups also plan to hold news conferences, town hall meetings and hearings across the nation to mobilize support for reform and to highlight what they say is the harm caused by a lack of legislation.

In addition, the unions included border security as a tenant of their plan but wrote in the agreement that enforcement should not be the responsibility of local law enforcement and should focus on "criminal elements."

In his address to thousands attending the National Council of La Raza conference, Villaraigosa criticized the Bush administration for what he called its "selective enforcement" of immigration laws.

He said that the federal government should focus its efforts on "criminals instead of working people," and that current enforcement practices unfairly tear families apart and punish small businesses.

Before introducing Villaraigosa to the thousands attending the conference Saturday, La Raza President Janet Murguia urged members to be respectful of both candidates, reminding them that La Raza is a nonpartisan organization.

He said 12 million illegal immigrants can be brought "out of the shadows and into the light, and onto the tax rolls by electing Barack Obama."

He took 15 AP classes in high school, and kicks himself for passing up two others. Now, he is graduating from UCLA, with a double major in English and Chicano Studies and a B-plus grade point average.

But for all his success, Miguel does not share the full-bodied exuberance of the graduating seniors who marched last month five abreast into Pauley Pavilion, belting out the '60s hit "Build Me Up, Buttercup." A native of Puebla, Mexico, he is an illegal [alien].

"When you graduate, you're just an immigrant again."

A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision entitled illegal immigrants to public education from kindergarten through high school

Over the last seven years, California and nine other states have encouraged undocumented college students to pursue higher education by offering many who graduated from California high schools in-state tuition.

“To these students, I say I hope you return to your home country right away," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), "and I hope you repay what you have spent of other people's money. It's a horrible crime."

Advocates argue that it's inhumane and counterproductive to ostracize students who have come so far with so little.