Timeline

• 2002 - Democrats nominated Gray Davis for governor of California, Republicans nominated Bill Simon. Few voters wanted either with the lowest voter turnout for a gubernatorial election in California state history (about 30%). Over 10% of those voting chose third party candidates, the highest percentage in California state history. Despite the voter disinterest, over $100 million was spent campaigning for the election.


• 2003 - Disenfranchised voters overwhelmingly approve a recall election. [opinion: this suggests that both parties failed their consitutents, relying more on internal politics to choose the candidates than the needs and interests of Californians.] Over one hundred individuals indicate an interest in running in the special recall election (including this webmaster).


• 2004 - With 60% voter turnout, Arnold Schwarzeneggar takes office after winning the election by a wide margin on a platform of change and removing the influence of special interests.


• 30 October 2005 - This Principles for Politics web site goes live.


• November 2005 - All 8 initiatives in a California special election fail with 50.1% voter turnout despite campaign spending in the neighborhood of one quarter of a billion dollars plus about $50 million in election expenses born by the People.


• December 2005 - Famous for his mocking "Golden Fleece" awards and once running a U.S. Senate campaign for under $150, Former Senator William Proxmire (D-WI) died 15 December at age 90.


• 24 December 2005 - Site upgraded to enable visitors to suggest relevent links.


• 23 January 2006 - A small but diverse group (by gender, age, race and party affiliation) participated in an open meeting to discuss this reform effort and web site.


• November 2006 - After the 2005 special election brought a stinging public rebuke, Governor Schwarzeneggar regrouped his policies to match those of the California majority and won re-election. Did his policy changes involve keeping his principles or changing them?


• December 2006 - (attributed to Newsweek) Political campaigns and special interest groups spent $2.8 Billion on November 2006 elections


• 8 January 2007 - The Governor acknowledged the growing healthcare crisis and released a healthcare solution. Most suggestions were grounded in rational principles: insurance companies should actually pay for care for which they accept payment; if the State wants physicians to treat Medicaid recipients electively Medicaid must pay physicians more than what it costs to treat the patient. One suggestion violates most rational principles in a capitalist society based upon our constitution: when government does not have enough money to buy the services it wants, force the individuals providing the service to pay for the service. If this principle holds, we will next ask police to pay a 2% tax so we can hire more police, libraries to pay a 4% tax so we can open more branches, and real estate agents to give back 2% so that homes will be more affordable. [This was ultimately dropped from the bill which passed the Assembly in December but died in the Senate in 2008.]


• January 2007 - Reports of bonuses to the Governor's staff for campaign activity
  

  Staff person	State salary	Campaign income
  Susan Kennedy	$131,000	$192,500
  Adam Mendelsohn	$123,000	$88,000
  Daniel Zingale	$123,000	$50,000



• 17 August 2007 - First candidate link added (for Patrick Murphy) after this campaign met most of the P4P site criteria


• November 2007 - Patrick Murphy maintained his campaign without accepting financial donations. He polled at 4% just days before the vote. The vote broke down as follows: Niki Tsongas 51%, Jim Ogonowski 46%, Patrick Murphy 2%, two others 1% total. Patrick is planning to write a book about his campaign. [Editorial: People who want change in campaign finance and special interest influence must step forward and speak up to support those who will enable change. If a pollster contacts you and you like the candidate for change, say so. You can still change your own mind on election day and vote for someone safe. However, if the candidate for change polls well, based on your honest opinions, it tells other voters that that candidate has a chance to win. Rising poll results might change elections. The choices we make in each election impact whether we get necessary change or just a new face and a cosmetic change.]


• December 2007 - California Governor calls emergency budget session after budget deficit as high as $14 Billion is identified, despite assurances in 2006 that California debt had been tamed.


• 6 January 2008 - site comes back after Domain glitch in October enables sale of the original domain principles4politics.org to an unethical business, forcing relocation to current address (and losing number one rank on Google searches held for 2 years). A cautionary tale for anyone with an online presence.


• January 2008 - AP news item states that California's population of independent voters has grown to 3 million and is growing at the expense of the two major parties.


• January 2008 - according to eweek.com, 16% of Americans have "sent or received an e-mail from a friend or family about presidential candidates or the campaign". [ed: That sounds like progress.]


• 28 April 2008 - P4P webmaster submits intent to run for state assembly on a platform consistent with the principles outlined on this web site. Needs 7,000 signatures to appear on the November ballot. [Information about helping the campaign is here.]


• July 2008 - State of California announces it is revising its voter registration forms because some voters who wish to be decline-to-state have been inadvertently signing up as American Independent party. [It seems that the number of decline-to-state voters is now a de facto third political faction, even though not a party. Might it be possible to tally the number of decline-to-state voters who voted in an election to determine a number of signatures less than 7000 to qualify for the ballot without a party affiliation?]


• 25 July 2008 - P4P webmaster misses 7,000 signature mark by deadline to qualify for the November ballot running for state assembly. [If you live in California, you can still register to participate in the campaign. Explanation of next steps is here.]


• August 2008 - an incredibly partisan retribution demonstrated in the worst way why we need to reduce partisanship in elected office. California Democrat Nicole Parra voted to abstain on the state budget. She did not vote against the budget and her vote did not change the outcome. Still, Democrats in the legislature's leadership decided that this offense was worth punishing by moving her office from inside the capitol building to accross a busy street. This makes coming to meetings of committees or the legislature more time consuming for her.
  
  It may be reasonable or even necessary to negotiate to support or oppose legislation based on the need to get the support of other legislators for your bills. Personal retribution for choosing to support your constituents should not be tolerated.


• September 2008 - An AP article reported that California expanded its voter rolls by over 500,000 from 2004 levels to 16.2 million. There were slightly fewer republicans (32.3%) and slightly more democrats (43.9%) and non-partisans (decline-to-state 19.5%). [Editorial: Presumably the remaining 4.3% were distributed among other named parties. Unfortunately, it is difficult to translate the registration distribution into comparable representation. We do not see nearly 20% of elected Calfornia officials registered as non-partisans.]


• 4 November 2008 - After a presidential campaign filled with historic firsts, Barack Obama was elected 44th President of the United States. While race and gender were big issues, firsts occurred on principle also. This was the first campaign where publicly available video was taken of candidates lying about things they had said or done. They would lie about issues that they should have known that we the People would know were false. An astounding low for presidential campaigns.
  
  Another big principle issue was a presidential candidate stating that his opponent was naive to limit his actions in combatting terrorism to those actions permitted by the Constitution. The President is not supposed to find ways to violate the Constitution. Benjamin Franklin reminds us that "Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither", yet those are the sacrifices that have been made, reducing our Constitutional freedoms for the pretense of security. The oath of office of the President of the United States includes "I do solemnly swear that I will ... preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States". The candidate must have missed that key element of the role of President.


• January 2009 - Barack Obama was inaugurated 44th President of the United States. While his campaign did not meet all of the ideals of this site, it is remarkable how close he came in a presidential election. He optimally engaged the American people in dialogue with email, facebook and web enabled tools. He accepted small dollar donations from literally millions of supporters. He remained consistent in his principles throughout his campaign. While we may be able to do better in a campaign that is less dispersed geographically, the campaign his team waged is as close to achieving the goals of this site as we are likely to see in any presidential campaign for the foreseeable future.


• January 2010 - Barack Obama completes his first year in office. He appears to have considered attempts at bipartisan efforts unsuccessful, especially in regards to healthcare and financial reform.


• March 2010 - Barack Obama signs historic legislation for healthcare reform after a major push among members of his party to move forward. [Editorial: a thorough discussion about what should have been done, what was done, and what is left to do can be found here. By using the usual political process, rather than a principle-focused method, Congress achieved the usual outcome. Perhaps Congress will consider the focus on principles in the Blueprint when they next try to fix our broken healthcare system.]


• March 2010 - The husband of Monaco's Princess Caroline is convicted of a crime in Germany and fined 40 days of his salary. [Editorial: fines based on salary / income are much more appropriate than fixed dollar fines. A $500 or $5,000 fine may be a greater deterrent to someone earning below the poverty level than it is to a Wall Street banker earning $100 Million. Perhaps we can learn something from the German justice system.]


• April 2010 - The Governor of Arizona signs a bill into law which requires police to arrest anyone who appears to be an illegal alien and has no documents to prove they are in the U.S. legally. Upon questioning, she admitted having no ability to recognize how someone illegally in the U.S. looks. [Editorial: Illegal immigration is wrong. That is why it is illegal. However, this law is appears to be unconstitutional. There are illegal immigrants here from many countries, so police have no way to determine based on looks or behavior whether someone might be in the U.S. illegally. There has to be a better way that involves a rational approach to the problem. This is one more example of why a principled approach to politics and government makes more sense than dogma or seeking public approval based on inadequate sound bites.]


• April 2010 - After dropping from $4,000 per pound to $3,000 per pound over the last 5 years, Humboldt County, California is concerned that legalization of Marijuana will lead to even lower prices. [Editorial: Doesn't that suggest that the new law would also reduce crime?]


• July 2010 - The City of Oakland, with one of the highest crime rates in California, lays off 80 police officers. [Editorial: Government's primary, if not sole purpose, is to promote and suport public safety. Before the City considered this threat to public safety, did they first reduce or eliminate City spending in areas that did not risk public safety? Shouldn't they?]


• August 2010 - The City of Bell is found to have the highest paid government officials in one of the poorest cities in California. In one case, an official starting at under $80,000 annually rose to a salary of nearly $800,000 in a few short years. [Editorial: I hope that not much needs to be said. Who was watching? Why didn't the public know or complain before it got so far out of hand?]


• September 2010 - A muslim center long since approved by the City of New York to be built several blocks from the former World Trade Center site suddenly becomes controversial. News commentators who originally praised it for its healing potential when it was first announced, now decry it as an insult to the memory of fallen Americans. [Editorial: If principles were ever needed, they are most definitely needed here. This is as sure a sign of hypocrisy and short-sightedness as we have seen since a former president tried repeatedly to justify a pre-emptive war. 1) Our constitution intends to guarantee freedom of religion. If you want such freedom for yourself, do not try to take it from others. 2) Do not judge an entire religion based on its irrational few. Would you want states to prohibit Catholic churches from having schools because of the danger of pedophile priests? 3) By protesting against all of Islam, this growing American mob is proving the terrorists to be right and helping them recruit new suicide bombers. The unconscionable person calling himself a Christian priest who planned to burn Quorans demonstrates that he does not think, is not a Christian, and puts our troops at risk.]


• September 2010 - Eight officials from the City of Bell are arrested for misappropriating more than $5 Million. [Editorial: As long as they are convicted and make restitution, our system will have worked. However, we should still be asking if the people of Bell had been watching and spoke up, would this have been identified sooner or even avoided altogether? I am not blaming them, they were the victims here. I am saying that apathy has a cost, so, speak up and get involved!]


• September 2010 - CalPERS lost $59 Billion, so the CalPERS money managers made 6 figure bonuses because their performance was "middle of the road". [Editorial: What? Since when do losses warrant any bonus? Everybody did badly, so that makes it OK? Now is the time to cut salaries and change managers if they are no better than the average and the average is devastating. CalPERS might have done better putting all their assets in a couple of index ETFs. I took money out before the crash and had minimal loss. A good money manager would have been able to read the same obvious signs that I read and saved CalPERS Billions of dollars in losses.]


• September 2010 - Decline-to-state voters account for 20.2% of registered California voters (about 3.5 Million voters). (Major parties hold 44.3% Democrats, 30.9% Republicans.) [Editorial: The major parties appear to be less in touch with voters every year.]


• November 2010 - California voters rejected Meg Whitman, despite her record-breaking $174 Million campaign ($174M raised, $163M spent) using mostly her own money ($141M).


• November 2010 - In a rare event among Senatorial races, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski claimed victory over Tea party candidate Joe Miller after running a write-in campaign. [Ed: On the same day, in unrelated Alaska news, a Wisconsin man living in a farming community shot his TV, enraged about Teen mom Bristol Palin on "Dancing with the Stars". Rage is unpredictable. Maybe we could have more rational discussion and less emotional rage.]


• December 2010 - The Schaible couple of Philadelphia, "faith healing" supporters and parents of six (6) other children, were tried and convicted in the death of their 2 year old son after they prayed rather than take the child to a doctor to receive antibiotics for treatable pneumonia.[Editorial: this raises a lot of issues. Where is the right balance between the rights and responsibilities of parents and the responsibility of the state to protect individuals from the harmful intent of others? Where is the balance between science and religious dogma, and the associated separation of church and state?]


• January 2011 - California Governor Schwarzeneggar, in one of his final acts as governor, cuts the criminal sentence of the son of a political ally in half.


• January 2011 - Denny's agrees to pay $13 Million to the victim of a shooting which occurred in one of their restaurants. Per examiner.com: "The settlement may constitute a very bad precedent because it appears to establish that a private business is responsible for the behavior of a person over whom the business has no control." [Ed. How is this in any way Denny's responsibility?]


• March 2011 - Asian Maternity tourists are found in a San Gabriel home. They were paying a fee to give birth to their children in the United States so the children would automatically be citizens. They were in the U.S. with proper paperwork and their actions were not illegal. [Ed. puts an interesting spin on the automatic citizenship at birth issue when these babies immediately go back to Asia and will likely be raised there.]


• March 2011 - California energy utility PG&E offered utility customers the option of removing SmartMeters for a removal fee (even if the customer did not request one and may have asked not to have one), plus a monthly meter reading fee of $14 to $20 monthly. [Ed. Looks like retribution for their initiative losing in the last election. Seems like an unreasonable rate hike to me. Most PG&E rate hikes are under 3%. Depending upon the bill, this could be as high as 25%. Customers without SmartMeters aren't paying any such fee now and the CPUC which regulates PG&E rates to ensure that the utility makes a reasonable profit has not indicated that PG&E needs a rate increase if SmartMeters are not installed. Maybe if SmartMeters are installed, those customers should get a $14 to $20 rate decrease as compensation.]