State lawmakers, watchdog call for removal of A.I. moratorium and provision to weaken courts in “big beautiful bill”

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - A group of state lawmakers and a campaign watchdog group are calling for senators to strip out parts of President Donald Trump’s sweeping legislation package that was ed by the House last month.

This week, Republican and Democratic legislators from different states began reaching out to Washington lawmakers, and called for the removal of one provision in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that would ban state regulation of artificial intelligence for a decade.

“What this particular piece of legislation would do is it would say the states have no say,” said Giovanni Capriglione, a member of the Texas House of Representatives (R).

Capriglione said the bill would strip away a state’s ability to enforce laws that have been ed to protect residents from malicious use of A.I.

“States all over this country are working really hard to make sure that we have guardrails in place, whether it’s for child sexual abuse material or this deepfake or some of these other items,” he said. “And unfortunately, what this part of the legislation would do is it preempt states’ rights to be able to regulate.”

Congressional advocates of the ban say having a patchwork of regulations across the country may stifle A.I. innovation.

“What we absolutely cannot have is a situation where the rules on the governance of AI change every time the winds of political fortune shift, one way or another,” said Rep. Jay Obernolte, (R-CA) during a markup of the bill. “Because we have innovators and investors that are making billion dollar decisions on R&D and procurement, and they need regulatory certainty to do that.”

The Campaign Legal Center watchdog group is also urging the Senate to remove the A.I. state regulation moratorium, particularly because of concerns about its impact on future elections.

“We’ve seen A.I. being used to simulate false issions of election interference, election fraud. That did not actually happen. And so if AI is allowed to be unchecked in our elections, we can expect to see more of that,” said Eric Kashdan, who works as legal counsel for the group.

Kashdan said another provision of the bill would weaken the power of the courts in cases against government officials.

“What it would do is basically make it easier for them to ignore judicial decisions that have already been handed down against them and provide a way to try to evade judicial decisions coming down in the future,” he said.

The provision, labeled as section 70302, would require anyone who sues the government to pay a bond before the court can use its contempt power to enforce injunctions or restraining orders that were meant to halt illegal actions.

“That would make it easier for government officials, especially the Trump istration, to just ignore judicial decisions they don’t like,” said Kashdan.

Some Republican senators have publicly stated their opinions on the bill’s A.I. regulation moratorium including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

“It’s a terrible idea, terrible, terrible. I don’t know how it could survive over here. But even if it could, it’s terrible policy,” said Sen. Hawley while speaking to reporters on Tuesday.

“I chaired a hearing two weeks ago on AI, and at that hearing, I said, I’m planning to introduce legislation that is a regulatory sandbox that includes exactly that moratorium of state legislation. Every witness at the hearing was emphatic that it is needed and very important,” said Sen. Cruz in a statement.

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