Local Republicans honor former legislators, hear from state leaders at annual Lincoln Day banquet
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IDAHO FALLS — As the country draws closer to its 250th birthday celebration, local Republicans gathered Saturday to honor the nation’s 16th president and hear from state leaders.
The Lincoln Day Banquet, hosted by the Bonneville and Bingham county Republican committees, is an annual event where party members can hear updates from their congressman and state leaders. Some also receive awards.
While the event was to feature an address from Gov. Brad Little, he was unable to attend due to the extreme wind conditions happening in east Idaho on Saturday.
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Despite the wind, over 100 people gathered at the Holiday Inn and Suites in Idaho Falls to hear issues facing the Gem State and the country.
News and scholarships
As the program began, Michael Colson, chairman of the Bonneville County Republican Central Committee, announced that the group would be creating a new scholarship to honor former state lawmaker Linden Bateman.
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Bateman died in January at age 85, and Colson remarked on Bateman’s storied past as a leader at the local and state levels.
Colson said the Bateman scholarship will be open to high school seniors and funded by donations to the Bonneville County Republican Central Committee.
“We are really very, very proud to make sure that this gets put in his name and his memory is not forgotten,” the chairman said.
Another former legislator, District 23 Precinct Committeeman Dean Mortimer, was awarded the group’s 2026 Public Service Award.
State Sen. Dave Lent presented the award to Mortimer and, recalling when the former legislator opened Idaho’s Senate Education Committee with a poem, shared a poem of his own.
“I wrote a little (poem). It’s called ‘The Measure of a Good Man,’ because I think it’s good men who help make this party what it is,” Lent said.
In the poem, Lent said that Mortimer never entered the realm of public service for glory or praise, but did his work quietly and left a mark on those he worked with.
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Federal updates
One of the main topics U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson discussed with local Republicans was the federal government’s partial shutdown and its impact on national security.
Referring to the recent attacks at a Michigan Synagogue, Simpson said work done by Democrats to shut down the Department of Homeland Security over issues the party has with Immigration and Customs Enforcement was “stupid.”
“That is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen,” the congressman said. “Besides that, they’re not achieving anything that they want to achieve.”
While Homeland Security is funded through 2028, Simpson said the partial government shutdown is affecting the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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Despite efforts to recall ICE, Simpson said the work ICE has done is aimed at “righting the ship” after four years of mismanagement at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I can put a stack of papers this high of the crimes that they’ve (immigrants who are in the country illegally) committed. … Nobody’s focused on the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Americans that have been brutalized, raped and murdered by people that should not have been in this country,” Simpson said.
The congressman did make his thoughts known about what he saw happen in Minneapolis protests against ICE agents, which caused him to pause, remarking that he does not want to ever see protestors shot, but that there needs to be reform.
He told the group of Republicans that he believes ICE agents should wear body cameras and that there should be some reform within ICE.
Patriot’s dream
With Little unable to serve as the banquet’s keynote speaker, Bedke stepped in and highlighted the work Republicans have done in the state over the past decades.
“We have … created the state that everybody wants to be like, and we can’t blame them for wanting to move here,” Bedke said. “I think what joins all of us, or unites all of us, is that none of us want to wake up 10 years from now and wonder where our Idaho went.”
This influx of new residents is due to common-sense leadership and the high value placed on family life, he said.
“We pay as we go. We make sure it works before we spend your tax dollars on it. And consequently, we’ve created the best place to live, to work and raise a family,” Bedke said.
He then referred to the fourth verse of the song “America the Beautiful,” saying what we’ve created over the past 250 years is a “patriot’s dream.”
“We realized that dream, and we cannot afford to take it for granted,” Bedke said. “Otherwise, we’re not keeping the Republic. Otherwise, the American experiment is on a teetering foundation.”