When an anti-gay-marriage computerized phone-bank message targeted the districts of a half-dozen state senators, including at least one in North Idaho, Sen. Gerry Sweet, R-Meridian, denied all knowledge. He and Rep. Henry Kulczyk, R-Eagle, were the main sponsors of an anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment that failed in this year’s Legislature.

Sweet said he’d heard about the phone bank, but didn’t know who was behind it. “There’s a number of nationwide groups that are watching this closely,” he told The Spokesman-Review. “The best I can do is ask around.”

Two days later, activist Laird Maxwell, who said he was acting as a consultant to Kulczyk and Sweet, admitted putting on the phone campaign.

Maxwell said of Sweet, “I told him, but he was sworn to secrecy, and he kept his word being secret about it.”

---

---