Maine's Clean Election Act prohibits publicly funded candidates from using taxpayer dollars to influence a pending referendum question. But what if that referendum question is one of the primary issues that drove the candidate to run for office in the first place?

The state ethics commission is being asked to weigh in on whether publicly funded Republican candidates can declare their support for repealing a controversial tax reform bill in their campaign ads. The panel was unable to come up with any easy answers.

As an attorney who represents Republicans on election issues, Dan Billings says there are few topics that divide the parties quite like Question 1 does. The June 8 ballot question asks voters whether they want to repeal a controversial tax reform bill pushed though the State House last year by majority Democrats. Some Republicans, who are running as publicly-funded candidates, say that issue alone is why they chose to seek elected office and Billings says there's nothing wrong with a candidate identifying with a cause.

"This is a traditional campaign tactic," Billings told the commission Thursday. "In the history of our state there are numerous examples of candidates tying their campaign to referendum issues."

But where does a candidate's advertised motivations for running end and outright issue advocacy begin? Maine Clean Election laws say that a candidate cannot give their taxpayer-derived funds to a political action committee created to support or oppose a ballot question. The money is restricted for the exclusive purpose of promoting the candidate's campaign. Billings presented the state Commission of Campaign Ethics and Election Practices with a proposed radio script, about 90 percent of which assails the tax reform law and specifies various formerly untaxed items that will be subjected to new taxes. Billings says it's just another election issue.

"If this was a script talked about health care, or jobs, or taxes generally and wasn't about a referendum, I don't think anyone would suggest that this wouldn't me appropriate use of Maine's Clean Elections funds," Billings said.

Commissioner Ed Youngblood, representing Republicans, says he understands the prohibited uses for public election funds.

"The flip side of that coin is, well there might be other ways of discussing it, whether its a letter to the editor or things of that nature," Youngblood said. "So I kind of see both sides of the argument."

But commission Chairman Walter F. McKee, representing Democrats on the five-member panel, was less conflicted. McKee says the statute clearly prohibits the use of public money for issue advocacy.

Allison Smith, co-chair of Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, offered the commission this advice, "as pretty close observers of the Ethics Commisson for a number of years, we believe that the Commission does best when it deals with specific cases rather than hypothetical questions", Smith said.

Smith says rather than wrestle with an avisory opinion on what can or can't be in a hypothetical ad, the commission should have a specific complaint before it.

"From listening to the disucssion and reading the materials it seems that at least arguably , something similar to the hypothetical radio ad that is before you could fall on either side of the line," Smith said.

The commissioners agreed and voted not to take any action on Billings request. The GOP lawyer characterized the panel's response as frustrating to Republican candidates who he says are only trying to play by the rules.