Virginia Democrats Pass Rules on How to Teach About Jan. 6

Virginia is poised to become the first state to explicitly bar public schools from teaching that Jan. 6 was peaceful or that the 2020 election was marred by sweeping fraud. The Democratic-controlled legislature has passed a bill that would require any Jan. 6 instruction to describe the attack as "an unprecedented, violent attack on United States democratic institutions." It would also forbid presenting claims of massive election fraud as credible, reports the Washington Post. The measure is now in the hands of Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, who has not tipped her hand on whether she will sign it into law, per the Virginia Mercury. However, Democrats expect her to do so.

• In favor: Backers frame the bill as a fact-check against what they call a growing revisionist push from President Trump and his allies. "We [won't] allow a new mythology to grow up around Donald Trump," says sponsor Dan Helmer.
• Opposed: Republicans say Democrats are simply swapping in their own version of the classroom speech controls they once decried. Delegate Tom Garrett labeled the bill "evil" and likened it to tactics in Nazi German and Soviet Russia.