Diane Patrick, the governor’s wife, issued an impassioned plea yesterday to elect US Representative Michael E. Capuano to the US Senate, but the congressman hedged when asked whether her support might help him against Attorney General Martha Coakley, the perceived front-runner and sole woman candidate.

“It’s more personal than anything else to me,’’ Capuano said of the endorsement. “I’ve said from day one, I’m not concerned about gender issues.’’

Although Governor Deval Patrick remains officially neutral in the four-way Democratic primary race, his wife called Capuano a “tenacious fighter’’ who would make a difference on the Senate floor.

“Mike is, number one, a brilliant strategist, and I don’t mean that in the sense of campaigning, but in the sense of getting the job done,’’ Patrick said at a campaign stop before about 150 people at the Dedham Community Theater. “What you see in Mike Capuano is what you get. He is the most genuine man I know.’’

The primary election, to be held Dec. 8, also includes political newcomers Stephen G. Pagliuca and Alan Khazei.

The endorsement by Diane Patrick, a law partner at Ropes & Gray, follows similar public support for Capuano from US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Kitty Dukakis, the wife of former Massachusetts governor Michael S. Dukakis.

Capuano said he is “proud’’ to receive Patrick’s backing, which follows the congressman’s early support for her husband’s gubernatorial campaign. But when asked to rate its importance, Capuano replied, “I have no idea.’’

Governor Deval Patrick today will unveil a state-commissioned report that urges him to push for driver’s licenses and in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, as well as English classes for foreign-born Massachusetts residents who need them.

The issues were the top concerns raised by immigrants across the state during a series of public meetings the governor ordered from 2008 through early this year.

Now they are among 131 recommendations in the “New Americans Agenda,’’ billed as the state’s most comprehensive blueprint for integrating immigrants into Massachusetts.

It is unclear whether Patrick will embrace the recommendations, which he has declined to release since he received them in July. He will refer the list to his Cabinet for an action plan within 90 days, said his spokesman Kyle Sullivan.

The majority of the 912,310 immigrants in Massachusetts are here legally; almost half are naturalized US citizens and other legal residents are waiting in line. But the authors of the report also urged Patrick to press federal officials to create a path to legal residency for immigrants here illegally, saying the harsh national debate casts a pall over all immigrants.

“We need to get past the rhetoric of hate that has dominated this debate and instead strive for policy choices that are in the best long-term interests of our nation,’’ Westy Egmont and Eva Millona, cochairmen of the Governor’s Advisory Council for Refugees and Immigrants, which authored the report, wrote in a letter to Patrick.

“As governor of Massachusetts, you are in a position to help influence the debate in Washington in favor of true reform that benefits the Commonwealth and the country.’’

The recommendations were submitted to the governor a year after he commissioned a panel of state officials and advocates to find better ways to integrate immigrants into Massachusetts.

The panel held six statewide hearings from Chelsea to Springfield through early this year, talked to 1,200 people, and spent $260,000 in private funding to complete the report.

Patrick has had a mixed record on immigrants, who make up 14 percent of the state’s population. The governor is viewed as an ally, but he has disappointed many immigrants by not lobbying hard for in-state tuition for undocumented students at state colleges and universities.

Patrick has long said he would sign a bill if lawmakers passed it, but advocates said they do not yet have the votes.

The former head of the state Division of Administrative Law Appeals, forced to resign in August amid allegations of mismanagement, continues to draw $6,300 a month in consultant pay for work she failed to complete during her two-year tenure.

Shelly Taylor, 48, earned a portion of her $108,000 annual salary for the month following her Aug. 7 resignation because she was helping her replacement, Richard C. Heidlage, ease into his new job responsibilities, Heidlage said.

Heidlage, who was hired at the agency by Taylor last year, said he retained Taylor as a paid consultant for two additional months because assigning Taylor’s unfinished cases to other magistrates would require them to start again, reviewing cases from the beginning and repeating hearings.

The backlog has created havoc for people who came to the agency for relief. A former prison guard who has waited 16 months for Taylor’s decision on his request for a disability pension said she does not deserve additional pay or extra time to finish her work.

“As a taxpayer, I am furious,’’ said Jeff Waite, 49. “I worked for the state. They paid me to do a job. They paid her to do a job; now do it.’’

The little-known Division of Administrative Law Appeals makes hundreds of critical decisions each year on cases including government workers’ pensions and appeals from professionals such as doctors and day care workers whose state-issued licenses have been suspended or revoked.

In many of Taylor’s cases, litigants have been waiting a year or more for rulings.

“Shelly took on too much herself, and, as a result of that, she was unable to get decisions out, and she was essentially a choke point for getting work out of the agency,’’ Heidlage said. “That was the problem.’’

Taylor did not respond to requests for comment left on her home answering machine and sent to her e-mail address.