{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.lee.senate.gov/2026/7/lee-latter-day-saint-colleagues-honor-pioneer-spirit-on-senate-floor", "Lee, Latter-Day Saint Colleagues Honor Pioneer Spirit on Senate Floor", "2026-07-23", "2026", "2026-07", "Republican", "Senate", "UT", "Mike Lee", "L000577", "www.lee.senate.gov", "mikelee", "https://www.lee.senate.gov/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) today joined his Latter-day Saint colleagues Sens. John Curtis (R-UT) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) to commemorate the arrival of the first company of Latter-day Saint pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. In a resolution delivered on the Senate floor, the senators highlighted how the virtues demonstrated by early Latter-day Saint pioneers \u2014 including faith, sacrifice, resilience, and community \u2014 are universal American aspirations essential to addressing our nation\u2019s modern challenges.\n\nThe resolution reads as follows:\n\nThis week, Utahns will celebrate Pioneer Day, which commemorates the arrival of the first company of Latter-day Saint pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847.\n\nFor many outside of Utah, Pioneer Day may seem like a uniquely local observance. But the values it commemorates are profoundly American and can resonate with all of us. We recognize not only a historic journey, but the enduring pioneer spirit that helped shape the American West\u2014and continues to shape our country today.\n\nThe early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sought to actualize our first freedom, and something every American should cherish: religious liberty.\n\nInstead, they were driven from their homes, stripped of their property, and forced to flee into an uncertain wilderness.\n\nThousands traveled more than 1,300 miles across plains, deserts, and mountains. My recent walk across the state spanned only 250miles, and our pioneers did not have the luxury of spare shoes and an RV to sleep in at night.\n\nParents buried children. Children buried parents. Spouses buried their soulmates.\n\nYet, they sang \u201cAll is well\u201d\u2014from a hymn still a favorite in our church buildings today\u2014for they had a vision of a land \u201cFar away in the West, Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid; [where] the Saints will be blessed.\u201d\n\nWhen they finally reached that place, the Salt Lake Valley, they didn't dwell on what they had lost.\n\nThey focused on what they could build.\n\nWithin days, they were planting crops, digging irrigation canals, laying out streets, and creating communities where none had existed before.\n\nOver the decades that followed, they established hundreds of settlements across the Mountain West, built roads and bridges, and helped countless other emigrants traveling west.\n\nThat is the pioneer spirit. That is the American spirit.\n\nIt is resilience in the face of hardship.\n\nIt is self-reliance married with cooperation.\n\nIt is choosing to build instead of surrender.\n\nAs our nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, I believe those values are as relevant today as they were nearly 180 years ago.\n\nEvery generation faces its own frontier. Ours may not be crossing the plains, but we are still called to solve difficult problems, contribute meaningfully to our communities, and leave a better nation for those who inherit it.\n\nAmericans still want to build something meaningful.\n\nThey still want to provide for their families.\n\nThey still want their children to inherit greater opportunities than they themselves received.\n\nThose aspirations haven't changed.\n\nWhat has changed is that sometimes we forget the virtues and sacrifices required to achieve them. May we all, this Pioneer Day, recommit ourselves to remembering that heritage, and channeling that spirit in our own hearts.\n\nBecause the American story has never belonged to just one generation. It is written by each generation willing to work, sacrifice, and build for the next.\n\nThat is why the resolution I\u2019m introducing with my colleagues today is about more than honoring the past. It is about carrying forward the virtues that made those pioneers successful: faith, sacrifice, community, industry, and perseverance.\n\nMay we honor their legacy by living those same values and continuing to move our nation forward\u2014one faithful step at a time.\n\nRead the full resolution text here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-07-24T07:30:11Z", "2026-07-24T07:31:13Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.lee.senate.gov/2026/7/lee-latter-day-saint-colleagues-honor-pioneer-spirit-on-senate-floor"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.011720858514309, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}