Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) was sworn-in as a member of the 118th Congress in a ceremony held on the floor of the Senate on Jan. 3, 2023.
WASHINGTON D.C. – As rumors continue to swirl about his alleged role in attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) sent a message to Utahns as he was sworn into his third term in the Senate.
“Many challenges do lie ahead,” Lee said during the Senate ceremony on Jan. 3, “but I remain committed to working and fighting for the issues that matter to the people of Utah and rest of our great country.”
Lee joined newly-elected and re-elected members of the Senate on that body’s floor to be sworn-in by Vice President Kamala Harris as members of the 118th Congress. He was supported at the ceremony by his wife, Sharon, and two children, as well as family friends.
The senator remarked that a new session of Congress would be a fresh opportunity to “restore balance and accountability to the legislative branch of government.”
To do that, Lee said that follow senators and representatives must reform the spending process and restore fiscal responsibility “ … so Utahns never again have to endure record-high inflation driven by reckless government spending.”
Achieving those goals in a divided Congress will be difficult. While Republicans are now in the majority in the U.S. House, Democrats increased their majority in the Senate during the mid-term election in November of last year.
Moreover, the GOP members of the House are far from united, as shown by the continuing struggle to name former minority leader U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as Speaker of the House.
In the mid-term balloting, Lee faced unexpectedly fierce opposition from independent candidate Evan McMullin, who tried to brand the incumbent senator as a threat to democracy for his alleged role in former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
McMullin’s claims were fed by testimony presented during public House proceedings of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Much of the committee’s criticism of Lee focused on a series of e-mails between the senator and White House officials discussing the possibility of alternative slates of electors being sent by battleground states.
But a spokesman for the Utah senator, Lee Lonsberry, said that Lee’s only role in sending those e-mails was to find out the truth before voting to certify the election on Jan. 6, 2021.
On Tuesday, Lee said that the real threat to democracy was executive branch’s continued expansion of its powers and influence by illegally transferring authority granted to Congress to unelected government bureaucrats.
That unchecked power, he argued, creates dangerous consequences, not just for Congress, but for Utah in particular.
“As a premier public lands state,” Lee said, “Utah deserves not only a seat that the table, but also a voice to ensure that we have the means to address a host of issues, including affordable housing.”
In his remarks after the Senate swearing-in ceremony, Lee promised to defend Utah’s Browning Arms Company against encroachment on the 2nd Amendment; protect religious liberty so Utahns can worship according to their sincerely held beliefs; and, promote fiscal responsibility so Congress does not shackle the children of Utah with unbearable debt.
“Above all,” Lee concluded, “I’m committed to uphold my oath to preserve and defend the Constitution.”