The Tooele County Republican Party pulled in a crowd of 136 people to fill Legends Hall at the Utah Motorsports Campus for the party’s annual Lincoln Dinner held Saturday night.
Abraham Lincoln left the Whig Party in 1856 and joined the Republican Party, which was formed two years earlier. In 1860, Lincoln became the first Republican elected president of the United States.
Many state and county Republican Party organizations hold an annual fundraiser celebration in February, the month of Lincoln’s birth.
Attendees at the Tooele County Republican Lincoln Dinner were able to meet with their party’s candidates for federal, state, and county offices before dinner was served.
Following dinner the group briefly heard from Rep. Chris Stewart and then Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes was the keynote speaker.
“I think we came within one election of losing the rule of law,” said Stewart, who serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Stewart’s comments were in reference to a confidential memo prepared by staff of the HPSCI that was made public last week.
The memo alleged that the FBI and Department of Justice misled a Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court while seeking a surveillance order for an adviser to the Trump campaign. The order was obtained using information from a dossier that describes Trump-Russian connections that had partisan origins, according to the memo.
Stewart described the dossier as “political garbage” with no more value than a “drug store novel.”
Stewart went on to assert that there is no evidence of collusion, conspiracy, or treason involving the Trump campaign and Russia.
When Reyes was invited to speak at the Lincoln Dinner, he was given the topic of how to combat the opioid epidemic.
Reyes said people should take ownership of their own pain management.
“We don’t always need a 30-day supply of opioids to deal with pain,” he said.
He also suggested proper disposal of unused painkillers.
“There are kids out there raiding drug cabinets and holding pill parties,” Reyes said.
Opioids take the life of six Utahns each week, according to Reyes.
“The opioid epidemic is not just a Tooele or Utah problem, it is nationwide,” he said.
Reyes said that his office is negotiating with drug companies to get them to change their practices regarding opioids and pay for reparations.
“If they don’t agree to negotiations, we will go after them,” he said.
After discussing opioids, Reyes went on to a more inspirational topic. He spoke about his father.
Reyes’ father was a well known entertainer and artist in the Philippines. His father had to leave the Philippines after receiving death threats for speaking against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
Reyes tied his father’s experience to a quote from Abraham Lincoln: “Courage is not the absence of fear. It is going forward with the face of fear.”