Kootenai County Republicans Split Over Matt Gaetz as Lincoln Dinner Keynote

When hundreds were expected to gather for the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee’s Lincoln Day dinner at the Coeur d’Alene Resort, several elected precinct committeemen announced they will not attend after the committee selected former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz as keynote and paid $30,000 to Premiere Speakers Bureau to secure a speaker. The dinner is scheduled for late February at the Resort, and the payment appears in county public records.

The selection process has become a point of internal contention. Beverly Guenette, identified as chair of the Lincoln Day planning subcommittee, told the committee last August that Gaetz would appear as keynote, and Dahlstrom said the full central committee never voted on the matter. Guenette did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the selection or the $30,000 payment.

Opposition from within the local party centers on ethics and optics. The House Ethics Committee’s December 2024 report found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz regularly paid women for sexual activity from at least 2017 to 2020 and that he had sex with a 17-year-old who was paid during his first term in the House. Sandy Patano, co-founder of North Idaho Republicans and former vice chair of the Idaho Republican Party, said, “Lincoln Day dinners are meant to reflect the values of the party of Lincoln, which, in our opinion, include personal integrity and the protection of minors,” and added, “I think paying a speaker’s fee under these circumstances sends a message that’s inconsistent with those values.”

Gaetz has defended the trip and his appearance at the dinner, saying, “I think Idaho is a wonderful place,” that Idaho should “produce fighters - not just people who go fill a seat, but people who take a stand,” and that the event will “position Idaho well to be at the tip of the spear” heading into the midterm elections. Premiere Speakers Bureau’s description of Gaetz on its roster calls him “a firebrand conservative who served in Congress from 2017-2024” and notes his service on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Armed Services Committee.

The split follows a local pattern of national-level, controversial keynote choices. In 2022 the county scheduled Marjorie Taylor Greene as a keynote, a decision cited at the time as evidence of deep factional divides in Idaho’s GOP. In 2024 the committee named Dr. Sebastian Gorka as keynote and used the Lincoln Day dinner to host a high school speech contest; that contest’s mechanics remain in place for the dinner cycle, with finalists required to attend the event, an application deadline of February 6, 2026, and cash prizes of $1,800 for first place, $1,300 for second and $800 for third. Finalists and two accompanying adults receive complimentary tickets to the dinner, tying youth outreach and local recognition to the same program now shadowed by the speaker dispute.

Local leaders now face practical and political questions: whether the full central committee will convene for a formal vote on the keynote selection, whether the $30,000 contract can be renegotiated or reversed, and how the absence of precinct committeemen will affect the dinner’s attendance and fundraising ahead of the midterms. Dahlstrom’s procedural claim and the public records showing the speaker payment frame those unresolved issues, while Guenette’s nonresponse leaves the planning subcommittee’s authority in dispute as the county GOP heads into a high-stakes election year.