State Legislatures Advance Bills as Sessions Progress

Two separate state legislative sessions were reported on: Missouri's General Assembly and Virginia's General Assembly. In Missouri, with one week remaining in its session as of late July 2026, lawmakers increased their pace on several bills, including measures on unlawful use of unmanned aircraft, artificial intelligence, incentives for downtown redevelopment, joint employer provisions, and newspaper advertisement rules, according to The Missouri Bar. In Virginia, as of a midway point in its 2026 session in February, the General Assembly advanced legislation to limit state and local police cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, following Gov. Abigail Spanberger's Executive Order 12, which ended an agreement permitting state police to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Virginia lawmakers also advanced a constitutional amendment that would allow mid-term congressional redistricting, contingent on an April 21 special referendum, and a phased increase to the state minimum wage, targeting $15 per hour by 2028, according to Virginia Mercury. These are two distinct events in different states, each reported by a single source, so no claims meet the two-independent-source corroboration threshold. The current status of most bills in both states remains unresolved, including final passage, gubernatorial action, or referendum outcomes. The Missouri report does not specify further details on individual bill provisions, and the Virginia report does not confirm final legislative votes on the described measures.