John,
How reckless it would be to block states from regulating AI for the next decade -- especially at this critical early stage when the risks, consequences, and transformative power of AI are only beginning to unfold!
And yet, this is exactly what Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Budget Bill will do if it’s passed. Ten years of unregulated AI chaos is the plan, prohibiting any state regulations while leaving it all up to the extremely dysfunctional US Congress to manage. Ten years in a field that is changing so rapidly as AI is like 100 years of inaction in a non-digital world.
AI is already disrupting our workplaces, reshaping entire industries, and raising urgent ethical questions -- from hiring discrimination to data privacy to deepfakes. But instead of facing those challenges head-on, House Republicans want to tie our hands for an entire decade.
Buried deep in their so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” is a stunningly long-lasting but shortsighted provision: a 10-year ban on any state or local laws regulating artificial intelligence. That’s right -- your state wouldn’t be allowed to protect its own residents from the risks of unregulated AI, no matter how dangerous or unfair the consequences become.
Send a direct message to your Senators: strip this foolhardy provision from the budget bill before it locks in ten years of ignorance and inaction.
Worse yet, the bill ties this sweeping AI ban to critical broadband funding. If a state wants to expand internet access to rural and underserved communities, it must agree to keep its hands tied on regulating AI -- no matter what happens in the meantime.
That means states would be blocked from:
Regulating biased AI hiring tools that discriminate against jobseekers
Curbing invasive AI surveillance in workplaces, public housing, or classrooms
Requiring transparency in AI-powered healthcare and education tools
Protecting consumers from AI-generated scams and deepfakes
Enforcing civil rights in housing, employment, and law enforcement
This is an outrageous abdication of responsibility -- and a power grab that would leave states defenseless in the face of one of the most disruptive technologies of our time.
We are just barely scratching the surface of understanding AI’s potential, for both good and bad. To freeze all state-level regulation now is not dangerously premature. It would eliminate the flexibility states need to respond to new risks as they emerge, and it would guarantee a full decade of inaction while AI weaves its way deeper into every corner of our lives.
Let’s get real: This ban on the states isn’t to enhance innovation. It’s to enforce control. The tech industry and its allies in Congress want to silence the states that are actually stepping up to protect workers, consumers, and civil rights -- while betting the federal government will continue to be too paralyzed to act.
But that’s not how democracy works. States have always served as laboratories of progress, especially when Congress fails to step up. We can’t afford ten years of regulatory silence just to appease the power-hungry Big Tech agenda.
Tell your Senators: reject this reckless AI gag order. Strip it from the budget bill and protect our right to respond to emerging AI risks -- before it’s too late.
Thank you for standing up for the power of states to protect their own people.
- DFA AF Team
