It looks like the Democratic Party’s fundraisers have decided to take off the kid gloves.

That was the conclusion pundits made this week when news broke that several lawyers employed by law firm Perkins Coie had sent documents in an “emergency request” to the Federal Election Commission. The firm represents the party’s congressional campaign committees, as well as the Clinton campaign and one of its allied PACs.

These documents, which ask for legal clarification on a number of questions related to campaign finance and super PACs, may illuminate a changing near-future for the party.

Once these questions are answered, plans to beef up the Democratic Party’s campaign funding infrastructure will assumedly move forward. This will give congressional Democratic candidates access to more super political action committee money than the party had previously allowed, and will push its position into cash-bloated campaign culture.

Hillary Clinton, whose campaign is represented by the election firm that filed the requests, stands to receive the biggest boosts from political action committee money to edge out her competitors for the Democratic primaries and, if she wins, the general election in 2016.

These changes represent a pivotal moment for the Democrats’ collective stance on big money in politics—a message that since this often-cursed era is here to stay it’s time to accept it.

Many Democrats have seemed to enjoy a moral high ground on this issue, as fictitious as their credibility may have been. When talking about the increasingly shady webs of funds of the political landscape, some Democrats have portrayed their Republican foes as sellouts.

While it’s undeniable that Republican use of super political action committees has been more visible in the past few years since the Citizens United court decision monetized speech, Democrats won’t be able to take the same populist tack once they’re receiving the same kind of support.

This is, after all, an age of skyrocketing campaign costs that keeps incumbents and challengers alike constantly fundraising to keep the airwaves clogged by political ads every election season. To not play the game and risk invisibility is career suicide.

What we’re seeing here is another official stamp of approval for a lurching, bipartisan dance toward bloated campaign culture.

Some candidates, such as the tentative liberal favorite Bernie Sanders and Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, have made reforming campaign finance a central focus of their platforms, advocating for publicly financed campaigns. They’ve condemned the immoral state of American political campaign culture, even as the party follows a larger natural pattern.

As an occasional idealist when it comes to politics, I see this shift away from principle as a foreboding sign. I’ve heard people say in conversations on the topic, “It’s not a moral thing anymore.” Excessive amounts of money in politics have become par for the course to the Democratic leadership.

As our parties prepare to clash again for political control of the country, it becomes clearer: This is how business is done now.

Thomas Beckley-Forest is a sophomore newspaper and online journalism major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at tjbeckle@syr.edu.

Published on September 21, 2015 at 11:39 pm