Latinnews.com ($) reports that the deal among leftwing parties to support a single mayoral candidate for Sao Paolo, Marta Suplicy, was in part to give her more of the state subsidized airtime:
The electoral accord will give Suplicy almost seven minutes of free air time on television for electoral broadcasts, second only to the incumbent mayor […]

Pinto-Duschinsky’s report done for Policy Exchange makes several headlines, including: Public subsidies to MPs ‘rising’, Low-level party funding ‘a myth’ and Parties ’spend less fighting elections than 40 years ago’.

From Honolulu Advisor:  
A pilot program to publicly finance Big Island County Council elections could be in danger after the state Senate amended the proposal yesterday to also soften restrictions on corporate campaign contributions.
Linking the conflicting ideas in the same bill could poison negotiations if the bill moves to a state House and Senate conference […]

Hoy.com (spanish) reports that the President of the Central Electoral Committee (JCE) in the Dominican Republic wants a reduction in the public financing given to the largest parties to achieve a more equitable distribution.  

La Gaceta offers this editorial (spanish) about the expenditure reports - and the Federal Justice’s (JF) job in analyzing and regulating them - for last October’s presidential and legislative elections in Argentina. They say that the JF’s work is cut out for them given that a couple of candidates, including the new president Cristina Fernandez, overspent the allowed […]

From Vermont, another take: “Campaign finance reform bill moving quickly through Legislature”
From Louisianna, an opinion: ”Jindal Ethics Flap Demands Louisiana Campaign Finance Reform”
From Minnesota, an explanation: ”The state reimburses some political donations.” Here, it is explained that citizens can get reimbursements for contributions made to candidates and parties (including the DFL - the Democratic-Farmer-Labour party).
The money comes […]

After months of controversy and heated opposition, the Electoral Finance Bill passed into law today. The provisions according to the summary at the NZ Herald are:
Any group or person wishing to campaign for or against a particular candidate or political party, or policies held by a party, will fall under the third-parties regime…
…will have to […]

This week Feingold and collaborators released more information about their designs to resurrect the public financing system for presidential candidates, reports The Trail. The details:
The legislation would dramatically increase the amount of matching funds candidates received during the presidential primaries. Right now, candidates who opt to accept public financing (only John Edwards and Tom Tancredo […]

GMA News reports on ongoing efforts to enact public funding for parties in the Philippines:  
An international lawmakers’ group endorsed Saturday a Philippine proposal for state subsidy for political parties in a bid to reduce political corruption and bribery among political parties and their candidates.
…De Venecia’s state financing bill was approved at the Lower House […]

Elections Canada is currently in a lawsuit with the Tories about “in and outs” - transfers from parties to candidates who are then invoiced to pay for media advertisements for the party, although the ads may have taglines that say the message was paid for by the candidates. At issue is whether these should be […]

An opposition lawyer intends to file legal proceedings alleging that the government’s attempts to finance with public money the campaign for Chavez’s proposed constitutional reforms is in violation of the (existing) 1999 constitution, reports Venevision (spanish).

Opposition parties in Ethiopia complain about governmental control over the disbursement of public funds to parties ahead of local elections, reports the Jimma Times:
While addressing their concerns about scheduled local elections, the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP) and the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) cited a need to […]

Earlier this month, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights issued this report on the French presidential elections (April-May 2007), which discusses some of the campaign finance regulations.
One feature of note is that the only existing penalty for non-compliance with the spending limits is the sacrifice of post-electoral reimbursements, a combination which makes for a […]

The Economist writes that the reforms to campaign finance in the UK are foundering as the parties are unable to reach compromise on Sir Hayden Phillips’ recommendations of more public funding and limits on spending and contributions.  Labor wants the public funding, but the Tories wont go for it unless there are limits on union […]

This month’s PS includes Werner and Mayer’s “Public Election Funding, Competition, and Candidate Gender,” an analysis of which candidates accept public funding for their campaigns to the Maine and Arizona state legislators (or which candidate do not accept such funding, and opt to finance themselves). Controlling for a variety of district-level and candidate-level characteristics (including partisanship, incumbency, […]

Switzerland has yet to make it onto this blog for a simple reason: they have no campaign finance regulations whatsoever, including no disclosure regulations, which means no (official) campaign finance data. I believe they are alone in this category in Europe, although there are countries such as Sweden and Luxembourg that have few regulations beyond […]

Money would be given to political parties to help them recruit immigrants if a reform to extend voting rights to foreign national were adopted, says Minister of State for Integration. Report at the Irish Times ($).  

Kenya’s parliament passed a reform that would introduce public funding of political parties, limits on parties to contributions, tax deductions on those contributions, and disclosure of party finance. It would also prohibit MPs from switching parties while in the parliament and introduces a new set of party registration requirements. The bill still needs to be […]

Many organizations (including “the country’s largest union, the PSA“, the Human Rights Commission, two teachers unions, and The Law Society) have criticized the still-lingering reforms in New Zealand, arguing in particular that the limitations on third-party spending are too tough and stifle free speech. The major components of the bill are summarized by the NZ […]

The Statesman writes:
A two day special meeting by the Inter Party Advisory Committee on enhancing public support for political parties in Ghana ended in a deadlock.
Major disagreement is not about whether the state should fund parties, but on the criteria that should be used to disburse the money. It seems disclosure requirements were also discussed, but that […]