[F]ederal law has protected the right to equal pay and contraceptive access for half a century.

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In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act to "prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers." 

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which broadly outlawed discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as race, religion, national origin or color. 

In 1965, the United States Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut overturned a Connecticut statute prohibiting contraceptive use.  In 1977 the Supreme Court ruled in Carey v. Population Services International that states could not prohibit sales of contraceptives to persons under 16 years of age who didn't possess approval from a licensed physician. 

Accordingly, federal law has protected the right to equal pay and contraceptive access for half a century. 

Despite that reality, liberals desperate to maintain Senate control are shamelessly repeating their "War on Women" slogan from 2012 and falsely claiming that equal pay and contraceptive access hang in the balance.  Here was Elizabeth Warren this week: 

"Republicans in Washington have decided that the most important thing for them to focus on is how to deny women access to birth control.  I'll be honest.  I cannot believe that we are even having a debate about whether employers can deny women access to birth control.  Guys, this is 2014, not 1914.  Most Americans thought this was settled long, long ago.  But for some reason, Republicans keep dragging us back here, over and over again." 

It should terrify Americans of all political persuasions that a leading prospective 2016 presidential candidate from the left could utter such a legally and historically illiterate statement.  The reason most Americans "thought this was settled long, long ago" is that the question was indeed settled long, long ago.  And it's not Republicans, but people like Warren, who "keep dragging us back here, over and over again." 

Senator Mark Udall (D - Colorado), who finds himself in a difficult reelection campaign, stooped to similar transparent pandering in introducing a bill entitled the "Not My Boss's Business" Act this week: 

"Women should never have to ask their bosses for a permission slip to access common forms of birth control or other critical health services.  My common-sense proposal will help keep women's private health decisions out of corporate board rooms, because your boss shouldn't be able to dictate what is best for you and your family." 

Ironically, that's precisely what last month's Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby achieved - disentangling private health decisions and corporate board rooms.  As detailed above, an employee's access to contraceptives or even abortion are beyond prohibition.  It's another matter entirely, however, for the federal government to force private employers to pay for those contraceptives or abortions. 

That's true regardless of one's substantive position on contraception or abortion themselves. 

Even more ironically, the bill that Udall's "Not My Boss's Business Act" would roll back was the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton and passed 97 to 3 by a Democratic Senate.  In fact, that 1993 law was introduced by none other than Edward Kennedy (D - Massachusetts) and then-Congressman Charles Schumer (D - New York), and supported by such Senators as Joe Biden. 

Yet today, protection of religious freedom has become less politically advantageous to liberals seeking partisan power. 

And then there's Barack Obama.  Touring the nation this month to play pool and drink beer while conspicuously avoiding any visit to our hemorrhaging southern border, Obama maligned Republicans in claiming, "You've got one party whose main goal seems just to say no:  Say no to immigration reform, say no to raising the minimum wage, say no to equal pay for equal work." 

Embarrassingly for Obama, The Washington Post this month exposed the White House's hypocrisy on the matter under the headline "Male-Female Pay Gap Remains Entrenched at White House": 

"The White House has not narrowed the gap between the average pay of male and female employees since President Obama's first year in office, according to a Washington Post analysis of new salary data.  The average male White House employee currently earns about $88,600, while the average female White House employee earns about $78,400, according to White House data released Tuesday.  That's a gap of 13 percent.  In 2009, male employees made an average of about $82,000, compared to an average of $72,700 earned by female employees - also a 13 percent wage gap." 

Accordingly, to the extent a "war on women" really does exit, perhaps the White House itself is the most guilty party. 

Fortunately, as noted earlier, the self-aggrandizing constitutional lawyer Obama need not sign any new legislation to rectify the situation.  After all, it's been federal law for 50 years.