nbc bay area political analyst larry gerston joins us now.hat is a thorny issue. what's surprising is that it's getting back to the spotlight. >> yeah. for a lot of reasons here. it gets really the question to the role, to the place of immigrants in american society. this has been a nation of immigrants, more so than any other country in the world by far. now, one-fourth of the nation's illegal immigrants live in california, which is yet another reason why it's such an important issue. but today there's some big questions here about what happens to illegal immigrants. some people say they take more from the country than they give. we're talking jobs and social services. it gets ugly. others believe that immigrants, legal or illegal, provide badly needed unskilled labor, new skills and creativity. so politically, yeah, this has been a thorny issue because democrats have favored comprehensive immigration reform, something that is viewed by minority voters. republicans have been against reform. look at some of the minority votes in the 2012 elec

larry gerston joins us to look at some of the plans being pondered.solutions could be on the horizon? stay with us. >>> president barack obama weighed in last friday on california's record drought with an offer of federal help, including $170 million in aid. standing in the central valley, the president said that california's problem is the nation's problem. now, how far did the president's gesture go towards actually solving the water crisis? that's the more important pressing question. nbc bay area political analyst larry gerston joins us with an assessment. photo op aside, how much good was actually accomplished by the president's visit. >> honestly? >> don't lie to me. >> honestly, not a lot. really not a lot. everybody else knows you can't manufacture water, there's no recipe for that. it's either here or it's not. now, what the president did do, sam, is offer federal funds to farmers and farm workers who have no land to plow and no work to do and he also gave notice that his administration would do just about everything possible short of finding

political analyst larry gerston joins us now.rning. >> what does this mean for the legislature here in california? >> right off the bat it's really hard to say. this thing is sort of unfolding. we don't know yet whether the charges raised will be raised against other legislators, as he might have attempted to bribe them. we know this much. he right now needs to think about 400 years in prison. 400 years. now, we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves here either, kris. there's a difference between one corrupt legislator and a legislature dominated by a culture of corruption. but we know this, we know this, this kind of thing is not done by one person. legislation is not done by one person but by majorities in both chambers. calderon here has been charged with 24 counts, including money laundering, bribery, those kinds of things. when we think about bribery, the question is if there was bribery, who'd he bribe? and did he bribe fellow legislators to get their votes on his bills? so these are the kinds of questions that are g