Happy 50th birthday to the Equal Pay Act.

The Equal Pay Act turns 50 today. With certain exceptions the act outlaws employers using sex as a reason to pay employees differently when the jobs held by the members of the opposite sex requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions. According to this, at the time the act was passed women were only getting paid about 59% of what men got paid. That figure has risen to 77% as of 2011. While progress has been made, a pay gap exists

More on Wisconsin's Mythical Repeal of its Non-Existent "Equal Pay Act"

This morning I posted about how Wisconsin Assemblywoman Kelda Helen Roys from Madison falsely stated that the Republican-controlled Assembly had voted along party lines to repeal Wisconsin's non-existent "Equal Pay Act."

In my original post I charitably assumed this was a mere mistake. But I now believe it's a concerted campaign to distort what the Republicans have actually done. Why? Because other Democrats are spreading the same lie. For example, Racine Assemblyman Cory Mason:

Every time I think this legislative session could not possibly get any stranger or more shocking, my Republican colleagues do something else to surprise me. On February 21st, in a stunning move, Assembly Republicans voted to repeal Wisconsin’s Equal Pay Act. That's right, instead of passing bills to create jobs, Assembly Republicans repealed the law that ensured that women cannot get paid less than a man for doing the same job.

Both of the emboldened statements are false. As noted in my previous post, what the Assembly Republicans voted to repeal was Wisconsin's "Equal Pay Enforcement Act," which actually just allowed additional monetary remedies under preexisting substantive law, and did absolutely nothing to "ensure[] that women cannot get paid less than a man for doing the same job." Pointedly, even if Governor Walker signs the repeal, equal pay for equal work will still be the law of Wisconsin (and, perhaps more importantly, the law of the entire United States).

So I'm no longer willing to give the benefit of the doubt and assume that these are just mistakes. I'm now convinced that this an orchestrated campaign by Wisconsin Democrats to purposefully sow confusion. It's shameful.

In Assemblyman Mason's own immortal words, "Are you for real?"

UPDATE:

As anonymous notes below, Governor Scott Walker has signed the repeal bill.