Clause

Washington. -- The Taking Clause of the Fifth Amendment (''nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation'') is not one of your more fashionable constitutional freedoms. But it has a cult following among conservatives, who see it as the vehicle for a revival of so-called economic rights. This does not mean anything so bleeding-heart as a right to food or shelter or a job. It means the right to conduct your business unmolested by the government.The Supreme Court has a couple of Taking cases this term.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette said the team was “more comfortable” signing right-hander Jair Jurrjens to a minor league deal than a major league one after closely vetting the results of a physical on his right knee. “There's some safeguards for the player in there, as well,” Duquette told reporters during Saturday's first full-squad workout, which Jurrjens participated in fully. “At least we have a chance to work together and see if we can help him be a good big league pitcher.

WASHINGTON -- Although President Clinton has been freezing pay and cutting government jobs, federal worker unions have yet to raise a protest. Some say the unions may soon cash in on their silence."

Christmas is a holiday of peace and joy, and most of all a time of wonder and innocence for children. It is a time of belief in magic and goodness, a day when small wishes come true. This year, in particular, we need reminding of that fact. It has been less than two weeks since a town in Connecticut was rent by unspeakable horror, an event so terrible that it spread sadness in the hearts of men, women, boys and girls across the globe. In the face of such profound grief, it feels difficult, even unseemly, to remember that miracles occur at Christmas.

In a story in yesterday's Carroll County section of The Sun, the chronology for certain events in Hampstead was incorrect. The town Planning and Zoning Commission gave preliminary approval to 220 homes in North Carroll Farms on Aug. 29. A resolution was introduced Sept. 13 in the Town Council to test the municipal adequate facilities clause in court. The confrontation between William Drummond and James Springer occurred at the Sept. 26 meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission.Amid a chorus of catcalls and jeers, Hampstead Town Council members this week rejected a resolution that would have put the town's adequate facilities clause to a test in Carroll County Circuit Court.

The Carroll Community College Senate is urging the trustees to add protection for homosexuals and bisexuals in the college's nondiscrimination clause.College materials, such as the catalog of courses and student handbook, say the school will not discriminate based on age, religion, handicap, ethnicity or sex.Members of the senate, which includes faculty, staff and students, voted 7-4 on Sept. 9 to ask the trustees to add "sexual orientation."While federal laws offer protection for the other categories, they do not offer it for sexual orientation.

WASHINGTON -- Drug companies no longer have to promise to charge a "reasonable price" for products developed using basic research from the federal government.The National Institutes of Health has dropped the so-called "reasonable pricing clause" from the contract companies must sign to bring scientific advances discovered in government laboratories to the corner pharmacy. The government routinely licenses its primary research to private companies for commercialization.Pharmaceutical and biotechnology groups welcomed the decision yesterday as a victory for medical process and a step toward reducing the red tape that keeps many companies from working with the government.

Less than a day after Maryland's new abortion-rights bill was signed into law, the debate continued yesterday over the measure's so-called conscience clause, the portion of the bill meant to hold harmless doctors and nurses who don't believe in abortion.Two delegates -- Brian K. McHale, D-Baltimore, and Timothy F. Maloney, D-Prince George's -- have drafted bills meant to clarify the wording in the new law.But the leaders of the House and the Senate do not appear anxious to reopen the contentious abortion debate -- even over so narrow an issue as the conscience clause.

The merging of great minds can lead to great things. Or, when baseball agents are negotiating with general managers, the results can be utterly absurd.With apologies to one-time Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire, originator of the Golden Fleece Awards, we give you the Golden Incentive Clause Awards -- bizarre elements of contracts signed this off-season.1. At least 33 players have incentive clauses providing for a bonus if they're named the Most Valuable Player in a Division Series. That's great, except for one thing: MVP awards are not given for the Division Series.

Major league baseball players who fail steroid drug tests no longer will have the option of being fined instead of suspended, baseball's labor lawyer said yesterday. Fines that ranged from $10,000 for a first failed drug test to up to $100,000 after the fourth infraction will be eliminated, according to Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president for labor relations. "We do have an agreement with [union head Donald Fehr] that the language after the disjunctive in the various disciplinary levels is going to be eliminated," Manfred told the Associated Press yesterday.

Twenty years from now, I will tell people I was present at the creation. One evening last fall, my colleague Jason Toraldo walked into my office and asked if I could troubleshoot a problem he was having on Facebook. He had recently put up a page for a small business he owned and wanted to connect it to his personal account. I'm reasonably tech savvy, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw. A nervous pig dressed like a middle-aged man, in slacks and an argyle sweater, was entangled in a pine tree and a string of colorful lights.

The official, certified results of Maryland's 2012 presidential election are in, and the the winner is Santa Claus -- at least among the write-in candidates. Apparently an actual person who lives in Nevada, Claus garnered 625 votes from people who took the trouble to scrawl in his name. That leaves the political independent far behind President Barack Obama, who received 1,677,844, but put him well ahead of the next-best write-in: former U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party, with 418. Claus ran particularly strongly in Baltimore County, where 151 voters believed in him, and Anne Arundel County, where 96 had faith.

Santa Claus is an official write-in candidate for president in Maryland this year, according to Maryland elections official Jared DeMarinis. Claus, an independent,  will not appear on the ballot, but he has let it be known that he's available to any voter who isn't thrilled by President Obama and Mitt Romney. While best known for his offshore haven at the North Pole, for electoral purposes Claus lists his residence as Incline Village, Nev. Claus has not yet chosen a running mate, said DeMarinis, director of the State Board of Elections Candidacy & Campaign Finance Division.

What type of majority is necessary to approve Maryland's Nov. 6 ballot referendum to expand gambling? Maryland's Constitution says: "a majority of the qualified voters in the State" (Article XIX). Those who have studied this clause, an amendment voters ratified in 2008, recognize its careless draftsmanship. Read literally, it means a majority of eligible voters in Maryland. This is not a crazy interpretation: dozens of laws with similar language have been interpreted this way since America's founding.

Time and time again I hear Republicans chatter about how horrible President Obama has been for the economy. One of their funniest gaffes is that Obama is a big spending, government-loving liberal. To put that in perspective: The average annual growth in federal spending under President Obama has been 1.4 percent. Compare that to George W. Bush's 7.7 percent, Ronald Reagan's 6.8 percent,George H.W. Bush's 5.4 percent and Nixon's 10.4 percent. (These figures come from the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget and Marketwatch.)

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act in the coming days, and it's hard to predict how the justices will rule. But that's not because the Constitution is unclear. Ideologues have muddied the issue by suggesting that this case is about whether Congress has the power to force us to quit smoking, exercise, and even eat broccoli. It's not. My office filed a brief on behalf of 11 states,Washington, D.C., and the Virgin Islands to remind the Supreme Court of what this case is really about: Congress' ability to address national problems that states cannot comprehensively address on their own. Whether the members of the court or the public like the act is irrelevant.

You won't see them in the skyboxes, but a couple of unusual co-owners were included with the sale of the Washington Redskins, an $800 million transaction approved yesterday by the NFL: the state of Maryland and Prince George's County.Under a clause in the 1996 agreement governing the $70 million in public money spent on roads and other infrastructure for Jack Kent Cooke Stadium in Landover, the state and county own a special share in the parent company of the team and stadium.The share pays no dividends, has no value and doesn't give the governor voting rights at NFL owners meetings.

Angry over a series of embarrassing incidents, Orioles majority owner Peter Angelos has authorized an investigation of right fielder Albert Belle that he hopes will enable the organization to void the remainder of Belle's five-year, $65 million contract -- or at least induce Belle to relinquish his no-trade clause, which extends through 2001.Chief operating officer Joe Foss and chief counsel Russell Smouse recently traveled to Philadelphia as part of their fact-gathering efforts surrounding a June 4 incident at Camden Yards.

While your co-workers hover around the water cooler debating whether it matters if Mitt Romney bullied some kid in his youth, a formerly First World nation called Greece is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Why, you might ask, should Middle America pry its overworked eyes away from Jennifer Lopez gyrating around in a bodysuit on "American Idol" long enough to bother caring? Now replace "Greece" with "your bank. " It suddenly matters a little more, doesn't it? What if your bank couldn't loan you money, give you a mortgage or allow you to ring up credit-card debt, all because the bank abruptly had much less with which to leverage your lifestyle since Greece decided to finally pull itself off fiscal life support?

On Monday, the Supreme Court will commence a nearly unprecedented six hours of oral argument concerning the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed into law two years ago tomorrow. The most significant challenge to the act involves the "individual mandate," which compels most individuals to purchase health insurance by 2014 or suffer a monetary penalty. Challengers claim that the provision violates the Commerce Clause, under which Congress has broad authority to regulate interstate commerce, and that sustaining the mandate would permit Congress to enact laws requiring individuals to do whatever it chooses.