Virginia lawmakers passed a bill Wednesday that requires public schools to describe the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot as a violent attack, and it specifically prohibits teachers from framing it as a peaceful protest.
Virginia Democrats have quickly advanced a slew of controversial bills since Gov. Abigail Spanberger was elected in November and their ranks ballooned in the state House, including a bid to redraw every Republican congressman except Rep. Morgan Griffith out of their seats to make the Democratic majority 10-1 in the state’s congressional delegation. Now, they are taking steps to shape how the history of Jan. 6 is taught to children.
HB 333, crafted by Delegate Dan I. Helmer of Fairfax, bars public school programs from describing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot as a peaceful protest or presenting claims that widespread election fraud altered the 2020 presidential results as credible.
The bill specifically “prohibits” instruction that portrays the insurrection as peaceful or suggests there was “extensive election fraud” that could have changed the election outcome. However, it does not lay out any explicit criminal penalties for violations.
In a statement to The Virginia Mercury about the bill, Helmer said there is “real concern” that President Donald Trump is “trying to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, borne out by the fact there is a WhiteHouse.gov site that presents a false history.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Virginia Republicans for comment.
The Virginia Assembly of Independent Baptists also came out against the bill, with Executive Director Michael Huffman testifying before a state Senate committee that “the true education equips children for life, not political agendas, and glorifying or mandating … the dark day serves only short-sighted partisanship, not our kids’ future,” according to Hampton Roads’ PBS affiliate.
Helmer, an Iraq War veteran and staunch gun control advocate, was first elected by flipping what was Fairfax County’s last remaining Republican district along its border with Prince William County in 2020.
VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS MOVE TO SEIZE REDISTRICTING POWER, OPENING DOOR TO 4 NEW LEFT-LEANING SEATS
Helmer also announced a bid for Congress in one of the newly redrawn districts, nicknamed the “lobster” or the “scorpion” by critics because it runs from the Potomac River in Arlington southwestward before splitting in two “claws” to reach out toward the West Virginia line near Rawley Springs. The other extends down toward Goochland and Powhatan, effectively collecting a swath of Republican-leaning towns and pitting them against a small but densely-populated Democrat stronghold.
One of his ads in a 2018 congressional bid compared Trump to Usama bin Laden, and, in it, he said the “greatest threat to democracy” used to live “in a cave,” but now “he lives in the White House.”
He recused himself from the redistricting redraw, according to The New York Times, but is considered a top ally of House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, who engineered the effort in the lower chamber.
While the new map has yet to get voters’ approval in an April special election, Helmer has at least one Democratic challenger in what would be a heavily Democratic-favored district.
Prosecutor J.P. Cooney, the former top deputy of special counsel Jack Smith in his investigation of Trump, told The New York Times that the mogul is not being sufficiently “check[ed]” by Congress and that the DHS-involved shooting of Alex Pretti solidified his decision.
Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.
