Another Democratic Gesture on Campaign Finance

Projecting a commitment to shrinking money's spread across public life is an increasingly unifying force in national Democratic politics this year. First there were the public financing proposals in the new House majority's sweeping political reform package (known as HR 1). Now it seems as though the party's presidential candidates are going to collectively foreswear corporate campaign cash.

Every candidate who has either formally declared or launched an exploratory committee — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former Rep. John Delaney and former HUD Secretary Julián Castro — has promised to decline donations from corporate political action committees. It's a symbolically rich statement even if it's not much of a financial sacrifice.

As Politico's Morning Score notes, Hillary Clinton's campaign committee and her joint fundraising committee received a combined $8 million from corporate PACs, labor union PACs and other candidates' committees — 1.4 percent of the $585 million raised by her 2016 campaign.

But Gillibrand, Warren and Castro have gone an important step further, promising to disavow any super PAC that seeks to support them.