SB 647 — Unmanned aircraft systems; use by law-enforcement officers, search warrants.
VA 20261 session
Use of unmanned aircraft systems by law-enforcement officers; search warrants; model policy. Expedites the issuance of a search warrant for unmanned aircraft systems by law-enforcement officers upon a finding of reasonable and probable cause by an authorized judicial official, as defined in the bill, and permits the use of unmanned aircraft systems without a search warrant when law enforcement is surveying the scene of a crime or to respond to a public safety call for service when such crime scene or call for service is located on public property, to locate a person when such person has fled the offense location during the initial response to an incident, or to provide real-time aerial observation to increase on-scene safety and security. Such provisions are subject to a reenactment clause. The bill also requires the Department of Criminal Justice Services, in consultation with the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission and the Virginia Association of Commonwealth's Attorneys, to establish a model policy for the use of unmanned aircraft systems by December 1, 2026. This bill is identical to HB 1219.
Latest action: — Acts of Assembly Chapter
Sponsors (3)
- Todd E. Pillion (R, VA) — sponsor
- Christie New Craig (R, VA) — cosponsor
- Bill DeSteph (R, VA) — cosponsor
Action timeline (39)
- · senate · S4020 —
- · senate · S1301 —
- · senate · S8122 —
- · senate · S1308 —
- · senate · S4640 —
- · senate · S4150 —
- · senate · S4140 —
- · senate · S4160 —
- · senate · S4140 —
- · senate · S4160 —
- · senate · S4160 —
- · senate · S4120 —
- · senate · S4410 —
- · senate · S4600 —
- · senate · S4601 —
- · senate · S8500 —
- · senate · S5000 —
- · house · H5220 —
- · house · H4110 —
- · house · H0801 —
- · house · H0807 —
- · house · H4120 —
- · house · H4130 —
- · house · H4210 —
- · house · H4602 —
- · house · H5020 —
- · house · H4190 —
- · house · H5020 —
- · senate · S5430 —
- · house · H5610 —
- · senate · S5601 —
- · house · H5620 —
- · senate · S5620 —
- · senate · S7010 —
- · G7010 —
- · senate · S8500 —
- · G7050 —
- · G7050 —
- · G9998 —
Text versions (0)
No text versions on file yet — same ingest as the action timeline populates these. Each version has direct links to the XML / HTML / PDF at govinfo.gov.
Bill text (extracted)
Amendments
Congressional Research Service briefs (0)
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Who matters on this bill
Who matters
Members ranked by combined influence on this bill: role (sponsor 5 / cosponsor 1), capped speech count from the Congressional Record, and recorded-vote engagement.
| # | Member | Role | Speeches | Voted | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Todd E. Pillion (R, state_upper VA) | sponsor | 0 | — | 5 |
| 2 | Bill DeSteph (R, state_upper VA) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 3 | Christie New Craig (R, state_upper VA) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
Stance (positions taken)
Predicted vote
Aggregated from: actual roll-call votes (when present) → sponsor → cosponsor → party median (predicts YES when ≥25% of the caucus sponsored/cosponsored). Each row labels its confidence tier so you can see why a position was predicted.
0 predicted yes (0%) · 543 predicted no (100%) · 0 unknown (0%)
By party: · R: 0 yes / 277 no · D: 0 yes / 263 no · I: 0 yes / 3 no