AUGUSTA – The state’s ethics commission is investigating whether the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a Portland think tank, should be required to disclose its spending and fundraising for the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

Late Thursday afternoon, the day before the Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices was scheduled to meet, a request was filed seeking the investigation.

Carl Lindemann, a former and future Maine resident and current Texan, filed the complaint, which alleges that many of the policy center’s activities in support of TABOR should require disclosure.

“Increasingly, the Maine Heritage Policy Center is doing the kind of work that a public-relations firm would do,” Lindemann said during a telephone interview Friday. “(Bill Becker, the president the policy center) is playing the role of chief flak for TABOR, and we don’t get to see where the money is coming from.”

The ethics commission briefly considered the matter Friday, but decided to give the parties involved and the commission’s staff until Oct. 31 to investigate and respond to the complaint.

Political action committees, which can be formed to support ballot questions, candidates or particular policies, are required to publicly disclose their fundraising and spending.

TaxpayerBillofRights.com, which supports TABOR, and anti-TABOR Citizens United to Protect Our Public Safety, Schools and Communities, are required to file regular reports with the ethics commission.

Individuals or other groups, which are not considered PACs but spend more than $1,500 in support of a ballot question, must also file disclosure reports of their spending and fundraising.

The Maine Heritage Policy Center is a nonprofit organization and does not fall cleanly into either category.

“The Maine Heritage Policy Center is not acting as a political action committee on behalf of this initiative,” said Dan Billings, a lawyer who represented the center before the ethics commission Friday.

Billings, who is also the lawyer for the campaign of Republican gubernatorial candidate Chandler Woodcock, described Maine Heritage’s activities as educational in nature.

He said the group is not advertising, sending out direct mail or taking out advertisements in newspapers.

“What they have done is craft the legislation as model legislation,” Billings said. “They wrote the initiative, but another group actually filed it as an initiative and collected the signatures.”

Billings pointed out that numerous other groups, which also haven’t disclosed their activities, have worked against TABOR. He named the Maine People’s Alliance and municipal governments that have gone to great lengths to defeat TABOR.

TABOR would place strict spending and revenue limits upon state, local and county governments. To override the limits would require a two-thirds vote of the governing body and then a successful referendum.

Jon Bartholomew, a representative of Common Cause Maine and the Maine Citizens for Clean Elections coalition, told the commission that he favored disclosure by Maine Heritage and any other group working to influence the election.

“Our interest is in disclosure and transparency,” Bartholomew said. “It’s important for the public to know who’s spending money to influence public policy.”