Ann Coulter: Moonies for Cruz

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by ANN COULTER6 Apr 20166,914

Congratulations to 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)

97%

 for winning his fourth primary! Usually Donald Trump wins the primaries — where you go and vote, like in a real election. Cruz wins the caucuses — run by the state parties, favored by political operators and cheaters.

Until now, the only primaries Cruz has won are in Texas (his home state), Oklahoma (basically the same state) and Idaho (where Trump never campaigned).

So now, Cruz has finally won an honest-to-goodness primary. This is great news for him, provided: (1) the general election is a caucus, and (2) the national media universally denounce Cruz’s Democratic opponent the same way the Wisconsin media denounced Trump.

In that case, Cruz should do fine.

The Cruz-bots don’t care. They don’t care that they’re being used as a cat’s-paw by the Never Trump crowd, and that a brokered Republican convention is more likely to end with Bernie as the nominee than Cruz.

The Cruz cultists don’t even care about plain honesty, which I always thought was a conservative value. Republicans used to be appalled by guttersnipe, lying political operators like the Clintons. Now they are guttersnipe, lying political operators like the Clintons.

It’s all hands on deck to stop the only presidential candidate who wants to save America from the cheap labor plutocrats.

Cruz has flipped to Trump’s side on every important political issue of this campaign — which only ARE issues because of Trump. These are:

— Quadrupling the number of foreign guest workers to help ranchers and farmers get cheap labor: Cruz was for it, and now is against it.

— Legalizing illegal aliens: Cruz was for it, and now is against it.

— The Trans-Pacific Partnership deal: Cruz was for it, and now is against it.

— Building a wall: Cruz was against it, and now is for it.

These are all positions Cruz has changed since being a senator — most of them he’s flipped on only in the last year. I’m supposed to believe that U.S. senators can sincerely change their minds about policies it was their job to know about, but a New York developer can never change his mind about pop-offs he made more than a decade ago.

Back in 1999 — 17 years ago — when Donald Trump was considering a presidential run on the Reform Party ticket, he said this when asked about abortion by Tim Russert on “Meet the Press”: “Well, look, I’m very pro-choice. I hate the concept of abortion. I hate it. I hate everything it stands for. I cringe when I listen to people debating the subject. But you still — I just believe in choice.”

Russert then asked him specifically if he’d ban partial-birth abortion. Trump said, “No. I am pro-choice in every respect and as far as it goes, but I just hate it.”

A year later, Trump wrote in his book “The America We Deserve”: “When Tim Russert asked me on ‘Meet the Press’ if I would ban partial-birth abortion, my pro-choice instincts led me to say no. After the show, I consulted two doctors I respect and, upon learning more about this procedure, I have concluded that I would indeed support a ban.”

Sometime in the intervening 16 years, Trump became fully pro-life.

You can say you don’t believe him — just as you might say you don’t believe Cruz has truly changed his mind on amnesty, the wall, or the Trans-Pacific Partnership, etc. But to claim Trump is pro-choice today — present tense — is what’s known as a “lie.”

But that’s what Cruz says over and over again, including in a campaign ad — and not one of those “super PAC” ads that count even less than a retweet. A Cruz ad plays the clip from that 1999 interview where Trump says, “I am pro-choice in every respect,” repeats it three times, and then cuts to a narrator proclaiming: “For partial-birth abortion, not a conservative.”

These are the kinds of lies that used to drive conservatives crazy when the Clintons did it. Not anymore. All’s fair in smearing Trump.

Trump has said a million times that he’d scrap Obamacare and replace it with a free market system (which, by the way, he explains a lot more clearly than Washington policy wonks with their think-tank lingo). Merely for Trump saying that we’re “not going to let people die, sitting in the middle of a street in any city in this country,” Cruz accuses him of supporting “

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

16%

-style medicine.”

Yes, because Trump is against people dying in the streets, Cruz says that Trump thinks “Obamacare didn’t go far enough and we need to expand it to put the government in charge of our health care, in charge of our relationship with our doctors.” Over and over again, Cruz has repeated this insane lie, telling Fox’s Megyn Kelly: “If you want to see Bernie Sanders-style socialized medicine, Donald Trump is your guy.”

Trump’s alleged support for the kind of national health care they have in Scotland and Canada is another big fat lie. Trump was issuing his usual effusive praise before he drops the hammer — “It actually works incredibly well in Scotland. Some people think it really works in Canada.” Then he continued, in the very same sentence: “I don’t think it would work as well here. What has to happen — I like the concept of private enterprise coming in. … You have to create competition.”

Cruz and his cult-like followers lie about Trump wanting a health care system akin to Canada’s and Scotland’s. They lie about his supporting Obamacare. They lie about his supporting partial-birth abortion. They lie about his ever having been a Democrat. They lie about his campaign manager assaulting a female reporter.

I tried being nice after Florida, when it became clear that Trump was the choice of a majority of Republican voters, nearly choking on a column praising Cruz for his admirable flip-flops to Trump’s positions on immigration and trade. I censored loads of anti-Cruz retweets. But — as with the Clintons — you offer these Cruz-bots an olive branch and they bite off your hand.

The next thing I knew, the Cruz cult was accusing Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski of criminal battery for brushing past a female reporter. Anyone who claims this video shows a “battery” is as big a liar as the liberals who lined up to say Clinton did not commit perjury when he denied having “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky.

If James Carville and Paul Begala had a baby, it would be a Cruz supporter.

They lie about my own tweaking of Trump — I didn’t like the Heidi retweet! — amid a tidal wave of support. Trump is the only presidential candidate in my lifetime who will build a wall, deport illegals and pause the importation of Muslims. He’s the only one who cares more about ordinary Americans than he does about globalist plutocrats. Does anyone really think I’m “tiring” of him because of a retweet?

Apparently, for slavishly devoted Cruz-bots, a normal human making a small criticism of her preferred candidate is unfathomable! That fact alone proves how dishonest they are about their own candidate.

I was under the misimpression that I was dealing with adults and not swine like Carville and Begala, willing to twist someone’s words to win a momentary political advantage. Mostly, I was under the misimpression that honesty was still a conservative value.

COPYRIGHT 2016 ANN COULTER 
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK

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Obama Claims Power to Make Illegal Immigrants Eligible for Social Security, Disability

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(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Does the president of the United States have the power to unilaterally tell millions of individuals who are violating federal law that he will not enforce that law against them now, that they may continue to violate that law in the future and that he will take action that makes them eligible for federal benefit programs for which they are not currently eligible due to their unlawful status?

Through Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, President Barack Obama is telling the Supreme Court exactly this right now.

The solicitor general calls what Obama is doing "prosecutorial discretion."

He argues that under this particular type of "prosecutorial discretion," the executive can make millions of people in this country illegally eligible for Social Security, disability and Medicare.

On April 18, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case. Entitled United States v. Texas, it pits President Obama against not only the Lone Star State, but also a majority of the states, which have joined in the litigation against the administration.

At issue is the policy the administration calls Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, which would allow aliens in this country illegally who are parents of citizens or lawful permanent residents to stay in the United States.

"The Executive Branch unilaterally created a program — known as DAPA — that contravenes Congress's complex statutory framework for determining when an alien may lawfully enter, remain in, and work in the country," the attorney general and solicitor general of Texas explained in a brief submitted to the Supreme Court on behalf of the states seeking to block the policy.

"DAPA would deem over four million unlawfully present aliens as 'lawfully present' and eligible for work authorization," says the Texas brief. "And 'lawful presence' is an immigration classification established by Congress that is necessary for valuable benefits, such as Medicare and Social Security."

In the administration's brief, the solicitor general admits that the president's DAPA program does not convert people illegally in the United States into legal immigrants. He further asserts that the administration at any time can decide to go ahead and remove these aliens from the country.

"Deferred action does not confer lawful immigration status or provide any defense to removal," he says. "An alien with deferred action remains removable at any time and DHS has absolute discretion to revoke deferred action unilaterally, without notice or process."

Despite this, he argues, the administration can authorize aliens here illegally on "deferred action" to legally work in the United States.

"Without the ability to work lawfully, individuals with deferred action would have no way to lawfully make ends meet while present here," says the administration's brief.

Nonetheless, the solicitor general stresses that "deferred action" does not make an illegal immigrant eligible for federal welfare.

"In general," he says, "only 'qualified' aliens are eligible to participate in federal public benefit programs, and deferred action does not make an alien 'qualified.'... Aliens with deferred action thus cannot receive food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, temporary aid for needy families, and many other federal benefits."

But, he says, aliens here illegally with deferred action will be eligible for "earned-benefit programs."

"A non-qualified alien is not categorically barred, however, from participating in certain federal earned-benefit programs associated with lawfully working in the United States — the Social Security retirement and disability, Medicare, and railroad-worker programs — so long as the alien is 'lawfully present in the United States as determined by the (Secretary),'" says the solicitor general.

The "secretary" here is the secretary of Homeland Security.

"An alien with deferred action is considered 'lawfully present' for these purposes," says the solicitor general.

So, as explained to the Supreme Court by Obama's solicitor general, when DHS grants an alien here illegally "deferred action" under the president's DAPA policy, that alien is not given "lawful immigration status" and can be removed from the country "at any time." However, according to the solicitor general, that alien will be authorized to work in the United States and will be "considered 'lawfully present'" for purposes of being eligible for "the Social Security retirement and disability, Medicare, and railroad-worker programs."

The U.S. Constitution imposes this straightforward mandate on the president: "(H)e shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

When the Supreme Court agreed in January to hear U.S. v. Texas, it made a telling request. It asked the parties to argue whether Obama's DAPA policy "violates the Take Care Clause of the Constitution."

The Obama administration has taken care of just one thing here: It has constructed a convoluted — and unconvincing argument — it hopes will provide the activists on the Supreme Court with a cover story to explain why this president need not faithfully execute the nation's immigration laws.

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Tenn. Lawmakers Pass Bill Making Bible the Official State Book

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by JEROME HUDSON5 Apr 2016138

The Tennessee legislature approved a bill Monday that would designate “the Holy Bible as the official state book,” becoming the first state to approve a measure of its kind.

The bill passed by a vote of 19 to 8 in the state senate and is now headed to the desk of Gov. Bill Haslam (R) for his signature.

“Haslam has stated that he opposes the measure but hasn’t said whether he’ll issue a veto,” Fox News reports.

Memphis Democratic state Sen. Lee Harris opposed the measure and said his constituents were concerned that the bill favors one religion over others.

“My constituents tell me that they want us to respect the diversity of faith traditions in the state of Tennessee, not just a single view or a single religious tradition,” Harris said. “And I think they’re right about the diversity of faith traditions in our state. One in five Tennesseans are not Christians. This group includes Tennesseans that are Jewish, Buddhist, and also those that do not identify with a religion.”

More than 8 in 10 Tennesseans are Christian.

“What we’re doing here is recognizing [the Bible] for its historical and cultural contributions to the state of Tennessee,” Republican sate Sen. Steve Southerland said.

Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson.

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SHOCK Poll: Trump Takes 10 Point Lead Over Cruz in Wisconsin’s Home Stretch

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by MATTHEW BOYLE4 Apr 2016Washington, DC3,517

Billionaire businessman Donald Trump has taken a 10-point lead over 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)

97%

 in Wisconsin in the final hours before the critical primary on Tuesday, a new poll released on Monday afternoon shows.

The bombshell new polling data, from American Research Group (ARG), show Trump’s 42 percent towering over Cruz’s 32 percent in the Badger State. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, for whom it is already mathematically impossible to win the nomination outright before the GOP convention in Cleveland in July, lurks back at 23 percent.

The poll surveyed 400 likely voters and has a five percent margin of error. It was conducted from April 1 to April 3. 54 percent of likely GOP primary voters polled in Wisconsin were men, 46 percent were women.

The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza signaled this poll is a “siren” worth looking at.

The results are certainly different than other recent polling that has shown Cruz with a similar lead over Trump. ARG has had mixed results throughout the campaign, finding Trump a point back behind Cruz in Texas. Cruz ended up winning Texas by big margins, well more than 10 points.  In Florida, ARG had Trump up 25 points over

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)

78%

–seven points too many. But in New Hampshire, ARG had Trump up 16 points–which was about right. Trump won the Granite State by 20 points.

Marquette and Fox Business polls released last week showed Cruz with 10-point leads over Trump and a smattering of other polling over the last week showed Trump trailing Cruz by around five to seven percent.

It’s unclear if this new ARG poll has any truth to it, but Trump and Cruz have been dueling on the campaign trail over the past few days throughout the state. Both have been barnstorming the state, going all in for Wisconsin.

Earlier on Monday, Trump suggested he might even win Wisconsin—something that was unthinkable just a couple days ago, as everyone thought Cruz would take the Badger State thanks to the endorsement he got from Gov. Scott Walker.

Trump compared Wisconsin to South Carolina—where Gov. Nikki Haley backed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who has since dropped out of the race. Trump ended up winning decisively in South Carolina.

“It was over. I was going to get killed. The governor of the state, who is fairly popular” endorsed Rubio, Trump said. “The governor supported Marco and I said, ‘That’s bad.’”

“But guess what happened? I won in a landslide. Same thing is going to happen here,” Trump said. “I think the same thing.”

“I don’t know, maybe not,” Trump added.

If Trump does pull off a come-from-behind victory in Wisconsin, it could be devastating to his remaining rivals.

“If we do well here, folks, it’s over,” Trump also said on Monday.

But if Cruz wins, it could cause more damage to Trump—and spark renewed momentum, almost a campaign reset, for Cruz.

Cruz in a CNN interview pushed back on Trump’s prediction, saying that he thinks ultimately “The people of Wisconsin will decide” what happens.

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The Panama Papers: ‘Biggest Data Leak In History’ Claims to Expose How the Powerful Hide Their Riches

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AFP

by JOHN HAYWARD4 Apr 2016169

The UK Guardian describes the trove of confidential data stolen from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm that specializes in administering offshore accounts, as “the biggest data leak in history.”

This refers to both the size of the database given to the Guardian and the BBC – 11.5 million files totaling over 2.6 terabytes in size, covering 200,000 clients of the firm – and its significance. The Panama Papers are touted as blowing the lid off the extremely complex financial arrangements employed by world leaders to conceal their vast wealth, and shelter it from the very tax systems some of Mossack Fonseca’s clients preside over.

The Guardian says the Panama Papers leak is an order of magnitude larger than either the diplomatic cables exposed by WikiLeaks in 2010 or the trove of intelligence documents stolen by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013, two leaks that indisputably changed the political conversation around the world. Snowden himself chimed in on Twitter to agree that the Panama Papers are the “biggest leak in the history of data journalism.”

Journalists from over 80 countries are said to be analyzing this mountain of data, which was provided by an anonymous source last year.

Among the prominent political leaders with offshore tax havens managed by Mossack Fonseca is Russian president Vladimir Putin, who is portrayed as using his associates to siphon $2 billion from Russian banks into offshore accounts. Putin cronies named in the scheme include his best friend and godfather of his daughter, cellist Sergei Roldugin, and former Olympic ice dancing champion Tatiana Navka, the glamorous wife of Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Everyone involved in helping Putin conceal his fortune in these offshore accounts grew very rich themselves, according to theGuardian.

The UK Daily Mail quotes Peskov denying the Panama Papers revelations, portraying the story as an attack by foreign intelligence services on Putin’s legitimacy “in the context of the coming parliamentary election.”

“Putinophobia has got so hot that a priori nobody can say anything good about Russia, they must say bad things and if there is nothing to say, one must make something up,” Peskov alleged.

The Daily Mail has Navka claiming she does not know anything about the offshore asset company she is listed as the beneficiary of, and implying that her passport, which was found among the company’s papers, might have been stolen and used without her knowledge.

“My wife never had any offshore company and does not have it now, she never opened it and, accordingly, she could not close it down,” declared Peskov, referring to the November 2015 liquidation of the offshore company.

According to the Daily Mail, there appears to be a Russian media blackout on the Panama Papers story in effect, even though it should be a huge story with the potential to shake up the government, because “Russian law forbids senior officials and their families from using foreign financial institutions and offshore vehicles.” Also, the Guardianobserves that Putin has been publicly urging his citizens to bring money from abroad back home to Russia, which makes the discovery that Putin has been shuffling billions through secret offshore tax havens more than a little inconvenient.

NBC News spoke with several Russia experts who thought the scandal was more likely to embarrass Putin than severely damage him, noting that he is meticulous about keeping his own name away from the most incriminating documents. However, Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer suggested Russia could “respond aggressively” to everyone involved in what it perceives as an attack on its presidency, including billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Foundation, which provided funding for the group of journalists that broke the Panama Papers story.

“I feel fairly confident that the Kremlin will be going after the U.S., Soros, the CIA and this is going to make Russian policy towards the U.S. actually much more sharp and antagonistic,” said Bremmer.

Other national leaders implicated in the scandal include Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, former Vice President of Iraq Ayad Allawi, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, Iceland’s Prime Minister Signundur Davio Gunnlaugsson, and one of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s sons, Alaa Mubarak.

Furthermore, according to the Guardian’sreview of the data, six members of the British House of Lords and three former Conservative MPs had offshore assets, as did the families of at least eight current and former members of the Chinese Politburo.  23 of Mossack Fonseca’s clients were under international sanctions, including supporters of the regimes in North Korea, Iran, and Syria.

The Associated Press reports the Panama Papers leak has already caused a firestorm in Australia, where over 800 wealthy citizens are now under investigation by the Australian Taxation Office, in cooperation with the Australian Federal Police, Australian Crime Commission, and Austrac financial intelligence agency.

The Daily Mail observes that some of Mossack Fonseca’s clients appear to be “billionaire husbands” using the firm to “hide their fortunes from the wives they divorce,” including Russian oligarch Dmitri Rybolovlev, aviation tycoon Clive Joy, and late British billionaire Scot Young. In fact, internal emails from employees of the firm have them cracking jokes about how the offshore companies they helped create were used to protect assets “against the unpleasant results of a divorce.”

As just about every story on the Panama Papers concedes, there appears to be nothing illegal about the services Mossack Fonseca performed for its clients.

In a lengthy statement to the Guardian, the firm challenged the accuracy of some stories circulating around the data leak, and noted the leaked documents confirm that the company “routinely denies services to individuals who are compromised,” or who fail to provide the information needed to comply with regulations.

“It is legal and common for companies to establish commercial entities in different jurisdictions for a variety of legitimate reasons, including conducting cross-border mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies, estate planning, personal safety, restructuring and pooling of investment capital from different jurisdictions in neutral legal and tax regimes that does not benefit or disadvantage any one investor,” Mossack Fonseca wrote.

“Our services are regulated on multiple levels, often by overlapping agencies, and we have a strong compliance record,” the firm continued. “In addition, we have always complied with international protocols… to assure as is reasonably possible, that the companies we incorporate are not being used for tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist finance or other illicit purposes.”

The firm also noted it does not manage its clients’ companies, does not take possession of their money, and does not “have anything to do with any of the direct financial aspects related to operating their businesses.”  

Mossack Fonseca took strong exception to the idea that “the primary function of the services we provide is to facilitate tax avoidance and/or evasion,” and said it was not responsible for the potential “misuse of companies that we incorporate, or the services we provide.”  The firm insisted it would never willingly help individuals associated with rogue regimes to violate international sanctions.

On the other hand, the firm charged that theGuardian was given “unauthorized access to proprietary documents and information taken from our company and have presented and interpreted them out of context,” and reminded the paper that “using information/documentation unlawfully obtained is a crime,” for which they would not hesitate to press charges.

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Killer Illegal Immigrant Entered U.S. as ‘Unaccompanied Child’

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by CAROLINE MAY4 Apr 20161,104

The illegal immigrant charged with killing 21-year-old Sarah Root while street-racing drunk, entered the U.S. as an “unaccompanied child” three years ago, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Edwin (aka Eswin) Mejia, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, absconded after ICE declined to detain him following his arrest and posting bail. Mejia remains at-large and is currently on the ICE Most Wanted list.

In a letter to Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) responding to a series of his questions, ICE Director Sarah Saldana revealed that Mejia was initially apprehended when he entered the country illegally in 2013 but was granted the special treatment afforded to detained unaccompanied minors from noncontiguous countries, released into the U.S. and never deported.

The answer portion of Saldana’s letterreads:

In May 2013, Edwin Mejia was encountered by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) near Nogales, Arizona, after entering the United States without inspection. At the time of this encounter, Mr. Mejia was 16 years old and determined to be an unaccompanied child. Shortly after the initiation of removal proceedings against him with the issuance of a Notice to Appear, he was transferred to Department of Health and Human Services; Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), as required by law. Mr. Mejia had no recorded criminal history in the United States at this time.

“In June 2013, consistent with applicable law, ORR released Mr. Mejia to his brother in Tennessee. In early 2014, Mr. Mejia relocated with his brother to the Omaha, Nebraska area,” the missive added.

According to the letter, Mejia’s next immigration hearing before an immigration judge was scheduled for April 19, 2016.

In January 2016, Omaha police arrested Mejia after he crashed into Root’s vehicle, allegedly while street-racing drunk. The crash killed Root. ICE has stated that it did not file a detainer against Mejia because his crimes “did not meet ICE’s enforcement priorities.”

In the letter, Saldana walked back the argument that Mejia’s crimes did not meet the “priority” standard.

“After further review, we believe that further enforcement action would have served an important federal interest in this case, as provided for in Secretary Johnson’s November 20, 2014 civil immigration enforcement priorities memo,” she wrote.

Monday Sasse expressed frustration with Saldana’s approach to the Mejia case. Calling her letter “bureaucratic nonsense,” Sasse took the matter to Department of Homeland Security Sec. Jeh Johnson. Sasse wrote in a letter to Johnson:

ICE’s response does not attempt to answer why it did not detain an illegal alien who killed an innocent woman and is now on the run as one of ICE’s most wanted. Director Saldana’s handling of this matter shows no regard for the Root family and continues to be an embarrassment to the hard-working men and women at the Department of Homeland Security. I am referring my questions to your office and look forward to a thorough response as soon as possible.

In his letter to Saldana and Johnson, Sasse asked:

1. Who exactly at ICE was responsible for evaluating whether Mr. Mejia was a threat to public safety?

2. Why did ICE decline to detain Mr. Mejia, despite several requests to do so by the Douglas County Police Department? Were each of these requests denied on a case-by-case basis?

3. In its public statement, ICE referenced the November 20, 2014 immigration executive actions. Why does ICE believe that new policy required the agency not to detain Mr. Mejia?

4. Did anyone within ICE consider Mr. Mejia a flight risk? What steps were taken to ensure he did not flee the country?

5. What is ICE doing now to find Mr. Mejia?

6. Do you consider Mr. Mejia to be a threat to public safety?

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Jerry Brown signs $15 minimum wage in California

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Gov. Jerry Brown, casting a living wage as a moral imperative while questioning its economic rationale, signed legislation Monday raising California’s mandatory minimum to $15 an hour by 2022, acting within hours of a similar bill signing in New York.

The bill’s enactment comes one week after Brown, Democratic lawmakers and labor leaders announced an agreement on the wage increase, averting a brawl on the November ballot.

In adopting the measure, California joined New York as the first states in the nation to enact a plan to raise their statewide minimums to $15. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed his state’s legislation and was cheered by labor unions at a rally moments before Brown spoke in California.

Brown, a fiscal moderate, had previously expressed reservations about a wage increase. But amid growing concern about income inequality in California and the national thrust of the labor-backed “Fight for 15” campaign, his hand was forced. Public opinion polls showed strong support for increasing the state’s mandatory minimum beyond its current $10.

The compromise Brown offered lawmakers – then celebrated with a bill-signing in Los Angeles – includesa provision allowing the governor to postpone a wage increase in the event of an economic downturn. It replaces a ballot measure that, if passed, would have raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2021, a year faster.

Brown, traveling to the state’s largest media market to sign the landmark bill, remained hesitant about the economic effect of raising the minimum wage, saying, “Economically, minimum wages may not make sense.”

But he said work is “not just an economic equation,” calling labor “part of living in a moral community.”

“Morally and socially and politically, they (minimum wages) make every sense because it binds the community together and makes sure that parents can take care of their kids in a much more satisfactory way,” Brown said.

The wage measures in California and New York reverberated nationally. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton appeared with Cuomo at a rally in his state, while her rival Bernie Sanders, said in a prepared statement that he was “proud that today two of our largest states will be increasing the minimum wage to a living wage of $15 an hour.”

The California legislation will raise the statewide minimum to $10.50 on Jan. 1 for businesses with 26 or more workers, the first of several incremental increases to $15, with future raises tied to inflation. Smaller businesses will have an additional year to phase in each increase.

The law follows measures in Los Angeles and San Francisco, among other cities, to gradually raise their own minimum wages to $15. It is expected to affect millions of low-wage workers and businesses that employ them, especially in the state’s agriculture, restaurant and retail industries. Some 6 million Californians currently earn the minimum wage.

By 2022, a full-time minimum-wage worker would see annual earnings increase to $30,000 from $20,000 today.

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León cast the legislation Monday as a recognition of “the contributions of hard-working men and women” throughout the state.

“No one who works full time should live in poverty,” he said.

In a concession to the state’s influential labor unions, the bill will also provide in-home health aides three annual sick days.

The Democratic-controlled Legislature passed the measure quickly last week, and on partisan lines. While labor unions and their Democratic allies celebrated the bill’s passage, no Republican supported it in either house.

Republicans and business groups said rising wages will force employers to increase prices or to cut costs by laying off workers or reducing their hours.

Research on the economic effect of a minimum wage increase is mixed, with findings ranging from little or no impact on employment rates, on one hand, to rising unemployment, on the other.

The measure will not come without a cost. According to the state Department of Finance, a $15 minimum would cost California about $4 billion a year.

 

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