Approved principles · v1.0
The values behind our judgments, in the wording ratified on September 28, 2026.
These are approved value rules, not voting recommendations. Applying them to a measure requires evidence and judgment.
R-001 — liberal frame. Use liberal institutions pragmatically to expand freedom, equality, broad prosperity, security, and the capacity for people to build worthwhile lives together. Prefer markets where they work; use democratic government to provide public goods, social insurance, equal opportunity, and corrections for market power and externalities.
R-002 — expected effects. Score expected effects rather than stated intent. Count fair process, recognition, expressive effects, rights, and institutional legitimacy when they map to a ratified axis or guardrail. A party, sponsor, slogan, policy label, or benevolent purpose does not establish an effect. Evidence uncertainty changes the defensible range or blocks a recommendation; it is not moral neutrality.
Bodily autonomy, speech, conscience, religion, association, privacy, due process, and equal legal status; harms include categorical exclusion, arbitrary coercion, discrimination, and loss of core legal protection.
The franchise, fair representation, lawful transitions, checks and balances, anti-corruption, transparent administration, and institutions able to correct abuse without partisan exception.
Sustainable production, competition, productivity, employment, and real access to housing, health care, food, education, child care, transportation, and other essentials, based on expected net effects rather than nominal spending.
Removal of irrelevant barriers, wider genuine opportunity, pluralism, and people's ability to participate and advance; raw demographic parity is not proof by itself.
Protection against poverty, illness, disability, unemployment, hunger, and other risks that markets or individual savings cannot reliably absorb, including who gains, who pays, and who can bear the burden.
Violence, victimization, preventable death, and serious threats to daily security, using proportionate, evidence-based means; punishment, criminalization, and symbolic toughness are not benefits by definition.
Greenhouse-gas emissions, pollution, ecological damage, future risk, adaptation, transition workability, and lifecycle or leakage effects where evidence permits.
Government's ability to implement law, finance durable commitments, respond to shocks, disclose costs, risks, and incidence honestly, and preserve democratic control over public money.
Selected verbatim passages from the ratified rubric: the two frame rules and eight value definitions. How the guide uses them.