A Pennsylvania lawmaker says he will be introducing legislation to create “Charlie Kirk Day” as an official state holiday.
Rep. Russ Diamond, a Republican who represents Lebanon County east of Harrisburg, revealed the planned bill Thursday, proposing the new state holiday be on first Monday of August each year.
Diamond addressed the proposal in a memo to his fellow legislators in the commonwealth’s House of Representatives:
Charlie Kirk was a tireless advocate of free speech and civil debate, particularly on the campuses of our nation’s colleges and universities — even during a period of harshly curtailed freedom of expression on those very campuses. This advocacy tragically cost Mr. Kirk his life, with his assassination leaving behind his young wife, children, and a nation that will be poorer without his enormous contributions to our public discourse.
Diamond added that Kirk’s life and work had “continued Pennsylvania’s long history — a legacy dating back to our Commonwealth’s 1776 Constitution, in which we were the first state in the world to enshrine the freedom of speech in a constitution.”
A suspect now is in custody for allegedly firing the single shot from a high powered, bolt-action rifle that felled Kirk while he was speaking at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox described the killing as a “political assassination.”
Kirk was a close ally of President Donald Trump and has been credited with delivering a substantial youth vote in the 2024 election.
The 31-year-old slain political organizer founded the nonprofit Turning Point USA, which seeks to encourage free speech and conservative points of view on typically liberal college campuses across the country.
In his official house memo, Diamond encouraged fellow lawmakers to join him in co-sponsoring the legislation.
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