An opinion by Julio R. Cordero at Clave Digital (spanish) writes about how various organizations – including IDEA, the IADB, and organizations from Spain, Holland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom – met with administrators from “Central America, Panama, and the Dominican Republic” to help improve political parties. Mr. Cordero writes that above all they need [...]

The Senate Rules Committee voted to allow a vote on the bill to mandate electronic disclosure of Senate candidates’ finance, after Sen. Bob Bennett tabled his amendment to put limits on coordinated spending. Republicans expressed frustration about the inability to put amendments on the bills, and about being in the minority in general. Having passed the Rules [...]

The Finance Ministry in Nova Scotia has introduced an omnibus budget bill, the Financial Measures Act of 2007, that includes a provision to extend the public financing of political parties and includes the Green Party in the extension.  
Update (29-March-2007): The Chronicle Herald has some of the details on the “transitional” public funding:
Finance Minister Michael Baker said Wednesday [...]

The Analyst (Monrovia, Liberia; link via AllAfrica.com) writes that 18 political parties were given a one month deadline to comply with the law. Seven of these were cited for inadequate bookkeeping:
NEC Political Affairs Commissioner said the last category of noncompliant parties are those that do not have the required financial reports including the National Patriotic [...]

On the Fifth Anniversary of McCain-Feingold the Campaign Legal Center hails it as a success because it succeeded at its intent, stopping corruption. It’s shortcomings are not its fault — it never sought to do anything about 527’s. That was the FEC’s problem, they say.
Meanwhile, the Center for Competitive Politics says it’s a failure. The reform didn’t stop [...]

In a post written earlier this month, I mentioned the news from Brazil in which Congress approved changes to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s allocation of the Party Fund – a monthly subsidy given by the state to political parties – in which 95% would be distributed according to the vote in the previous election to the lower [...]

The Institute for Justice released a report on an unintended consequence of campaign finance disclosure rules in the United States: “ordinary Americans are being shut up and shut out of the political process.” While disclosure laws may give citizens information about politicians and their sources of information, they can also discourage them from voicing their [...]

Jose C. Sison at the Philippine Star and ABS-CBN writes that the party-list tier to the Philippines’ lower chamber of congress is not functioning as it should. To paraphrase, he says there are two problems: first, because relative to winning a seat in the single-member district tier it is a cheaper way to get elected, it [...]

Brian Lapping at the Guardian has another, albeit unlikely, solution to the two problems underlying the UK’s cash-for-peerages scandal: the wealthy’s demand for honors and the parties’ demand for money. Publicly auction the honors, he writes.
The principle is simple. Sell the damned baubles for what they will fetch and use the loot to enable our excellent political leaders [...]

A fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico has lead the Senate to consider a measure that would reduce the public financing given to parties and gubernatorial candidates by 25%. The measure would also reduce maximum allowed contributions these parties and candidates can take in. More at Primera Hora (spanish).

The New South Wales Greens have released a website to provide access to campaign finance data (as well as to highlight their stance on campaign finance): democracy4sale.org. Norman Thompson writes that the current system is “broken” because the Australian Electoral Commission’s web-based donation disclosure system makes some information difficult to obtain and because Australia should emulate [...]

The Central Electoral Authority in the Domincan Republic warned parties about beginning their campaigns before the official campaign period – a warning that some say is already too late for next year’s elections, writes Juan Bolívar Díaz at Hoy and Clave Digital (in Spanish), and also a factor for the rising cost of campaigns in the Dominican Republic. [...]

The Associated Press reports from New Mexico:
Gov. Bill Richardson has vetoed a proposal that would have eliminated a requirement that candidates electronically file their campaign-finance reports.
Starting in 2006, candidates had to submit financial disclosure reports electronically to the secretary of state’s office, and the public could access those online.
However, the law allows the secretary of [...]

The Economist is skeptical of Phillips’ campaign finance reform recommendations for the UK, in part because Labour doesn’t want to budge on capping donations from unions, and the Tories dont want to impinge their ability to target marginal districts with large infusions of campaign expenditures, something “Lord Moneybags Ashcroft, who pumps huge sums into targeted marginals, [...]

The plan to provide public financing for some legislative candidates passed the New Jersey legislature and is on the way to the Governor. Newsday has some of the details:
Under the bill, candidates for the Assembly and Senate in three districts would be eligible for public campaign financing by first raising $10,000 in seed money, with all [...]

Sir Hayden Phillips has released his report and recommendations for campaign finance reform in the UK. He was commissioned to study the present regulatory system and make recommendations in an independent commission begun by PM Blair after the cash-for-honors scandal broke last year.
For the Labour Party, the main sticking point seems to be whether the [...]

Mitt Romney, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has annouced a 27-member fundraising team for California.
Meanwhile, Governor Schwarzenegger is throwing cocktail parties in his home for contributors who give at least $250,000. Why is he still raising the money? Political Muscle writes that it is in part to pay for his private jet.
Schwarzenegger’s private jets [...]

The NYTimes reports on Gov. Spitzer’s budget battle (largely over health care) in which the Senate has cut funding for campaign oversight:
The Senate budget also rejects money for 21 new state workers to oversee compliance with campaign finance regulations and cuts financing for Project Sunlight, a plan by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo to build a [...]

IFE and the Finance Ministry in Mexico have begun to audit all the privately-raised income of candidates and parties for last July’s federal parliarmentary elections to see if they illegally received or used money. This audit entails the examination of the approximate US$120M raised privately by the parties; they also received for last year’s election [...]

The Vermont legislature will seek again to pass new contribution limits after its previous legislation, which enacted contribution limits of $200 per state House candidate. The Supreme Court rejected the law because the limits were too low. A draft proposal will seek to introduce limits only slightly higher, at $250 for state House candidates, which could [...]