Constitution

Maryland's General Assembly failed to pass a balanced budget, according to a memo obtained by The Baltimore Sun. Enacting a balanced budget is the legislature's primary constitutional requirement. "The [fiscal year] 2013 budget is nearly $70 million out of balance," wrote Budget Secretary T. Eloise Foster in a memo to all of Gov. Martin O'Malley's Cabinet secretaries. She recommended that the governor not sign any legislation that reduces revenues "until the imbalance is addressed.

For almost a decade, the Maryland business community has urged the legislature to raise revenue to invest in our state's clogged transportation infrastructure. And for good reason. The Baltimore area is the fifth most traffic-congested in America - and the Washington area is No. 1. As nations like China build high-speed rail and cities from Portland to Dallas expand light rail, Maryland continues to fall behind even in repairing potholes and bridges. Building the Red Line in Baltimore, the Purple Line in the D.C. suburbs, and the kind of MARC commuter rail Maryland needs remain aspirations, not financed projects.

In 1776, there were an estimated 2.5 million folks living in the New Colonies. Today, there are 311 million individuals who must be included when we consider their needs and make laws. How is it that the Baltimore Sun editorial staff, the media, our politicians, experts and even the president rarely, if ever, addresses this profound condition? Population growth and its problems should be the first factor in any national logistics planning. Furthermore, do we have confidence that the framers of the Constitution could see into the future?

While this week's Supreme Court hearings left many Democrats apprehensive that the justices will overturn President Obama's landmark health care law, Gov. Martin O'Malley remains an optimist. The governor said that after reading over transcripts of the hearings, at which Republican-appointed justices expressed deep skepticism about the constitutionality of the law, he's not at all sure that they're poised to strike it down in whole or in part. "I think they're going to affirm it," he said.

After three days of arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, the case for the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, better known as "Obamacare," remains strong. Four members of the court, including the justice expected to be the key swing vote on the issue, asked tough questions of the government's lawyer about the requirement that individuals obtain health insurance that is at the heart of the case against the law. But the inaptness of the comparisons they used to call the individual mandate into question reveal the uniqueness of the health insurance market and the propriety of Congress' decision to regulate it in the way it did. And even as the justices questioned whether Congress overstepped its powers, they risked doing the same.

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.

Kudos to Judge Benson E. Legg for overturning Maryland's draconian and unconstitutional gun-carry laws. Statistics are very clear - granting carry permits to law-abiding, well-trained citizens does not increase gun violence. In fact, when the good are armed, the bad are hesitant. When I lived in Pennsylvania, I had a weapons permit, carried the gun often and never once fired it anywhere except the shooting range. But I was prepared to protect myself and my family, if necessary. Our neighbors in Pennsylvania and Virginia, both demographically very similar to suburban Maryland, rank lower in gun deaths per 100,000 than our lovely state.

There was barely a whisper about God during a Carroll County-sponsored seminar Friday on the state constitution. The speaker was introduced as Pastor David Whitney to an audience of about 50 county employees in a lecture hall at Carroll Community College, but he made no attempt to proselytize. "I am honored to be with people who care about their country," said Whitney, the pastor of a Pasadena church who frequently lectures for the Institute on the Constitution. "I commend the county commissioners for having the foresight to offer you an opportunity to study the supreme law of the state.

Carroll County commissioners have asked county employees to attend a seminar on the Maryland Constitution led by a conservative Christian minister, sparking accusations that local officials are overstepping the boundary between church and state. David Whitney, pastor of a Pasadena church and a lecturer for the Institute on the Constitution, bases his teachings on the biblical view of American law and government. He said of the seminar scheduled for Friday, "We will be looking at the language of our founding fathers who wrote they were 'grateful to Almighty God for civil and religious liberties' front and center on this document.

In response to Max Romano's commentary regarding the "right" to birth control, to which constitutional right does he refer? I searched my copy of the Constitution and could find no reference to any such right ("The right to birth control," Feb. 15). There are so many holes in his argument I hardly know where to begin. Start with "reproductive justice," whatever that is. Men and women do indeed have control over their future, sexual or otherwise; it's called making responsible decisions, not depending on a government mandate.