SALT LAKE CITY – Borrowing a turn of phrase from former President Ronald Regan, Gov. Spencer Cox painted a picture of Utah as a shining city on a hill in his 2026 State of the State address to the Utah Legislature.
“America desperately needs a return to virtue,” he urged the 75 representatives and 29 senators gathered at the Utah Capitol. “You could say American needs a return to Utah.
“Have faith in America, have faith in Utah and always — have faith,” he added.
In his annual 30-minute speech to lawmakers, Cox extolled the virtues of the founding fathers, who he said understood the true meaning of “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence they signed 250 years ago.
“Conventional thinking today defines happiness as something like the pursuit of pleasure or materialism,” Cox explained.
“To the founders, however, the pursuit of happiness had everything to do with character, the result of self-mastery and a life oriented toward purpose and public service.
“Happiness wasn’t feeling good, it was being good,” Cox argued.
Temporarily leaving aside inspiration, Cox also outlined some of the assembled lawmakers greatest challenges.
Those included early literacy, where nearly half of Utah’s third graders are not reading at grade level; the need to increase the housing supply to keep homeownership within reach for working families; finding solutions to problems of homelessness, addiction and Fentanyl abuse that pair compassion with accountability; and addressing the issues of phones in school and social media accountability.
Despite all that, Cox still cautioned that against over-reliance on legislation as a cure-all, arguing that lasting progess requires self-governance rooted in virtue, responsibility and service.
“Perhaps more important than all the great bills we pass this session,” Cox noted, “are the bills we don’t pass.”
Returning to the inspirational message of this address, Cox called Utah perhaps the greatest success story of all in the American experiment.
“We’re consistently ranked as the best place in the nation to start and grow a small business,” he emphasized. “We’re a family-first state that leads in upward mobility, showing that where you start does not have to determine where you end.
“And, for three years in a row, Utah was ranked the number one state in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, not by dominating one category, but by succeeding across the board.”