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Many of the newly naturalized immigrants had benefited from the Immigration Reform and Control Act, passed by Congress in 1986 and signed by President Reagan. It provided a path to legal status to close to 2.7 million people. But scholars have shown the naturalization bump was tied to the community's reaction to Prop 187.

Latinos now hold close to a quarter of partisan elected offices in California, up from just 11 percent when Prop 187 passed.

Secretary of State Alex Padilla said another trend started in the mid-90s: Republican power in California, once the stomping grounds of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, began to wane.

"Proposition 187 changed everything," Padilla said. "The electorate is very different today than what it was back in 1994."

In 1996, Democrats picked up a handful of seats in the California Assembly -- and control of both state houses hasn't slipped from the party's grip since. Dems now hold a super majority in the state Assembly and Senate, allowing them to pass tax increases or override vetoes without GOP support.

In campaigns across the state, "Democrats weren't running against their Republican opponents, they were running against Pete Wilson," Padilla said. "Prop 187 became a strong, symbolic representation of the difference between the two political parties."

Today, not a single statewide office is held by a member of the GOP, and more voters are registered "No Party Preference" than Republican in California.

In the wake of Prop 187, California voters still enacted policies seen by many as anti-immigrant -- like the approval of Proposition 209 in 1996, which banned affirmative action in government employment or public education. Two years later, Proposition 227 eliminated most bilingual education programs in the state.

These further drove a wedge between many California Latinos and the GOP that, as Padilla sees it, formed during Prop 187 -- despite the old political wisdom that socially conservative Latinos are persuadable for Republican candidates.

"I've heard it so many times over the years," Padilla said. "For all the emphasis on family values or entrepreneurship or anything else, it's really hard for a Latino to accept that, if what you hear much more loudly is, 'we don't want you here.' That's what you hear from the Republican party."

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