Lawmakers face mounting tech opposition over AI rules

Austin Jenkins | State Affairs

State lawmakers, civil society groups and others who have sought to regulate artificial intelligence face a mounting, industry-led opposition campaign that is prepared to spend big in 2026 to thwart their efforts.

Three super PACs launched in recent weeks, two funded by Meta and one by the AI industry more broadly. Spending through next year’s elections could top $100 million, with a significant portion of that spent on influencing state-level races and policy fights.

The avalanche of PAC money represents a significant escalation in the fight over AI regulations. It highlights the extent to which states have supplanted the federal government as the heavy hitters of tech policy.

“America wins on AI by earning public trust, not by steamrolling statehouses,” Vermont Rep. Monique Priestley (D) and Utah Rep. Doug Fiefia (R) said in a joint statement to Pluribus News. “Our bipartisan efforts will advance practical standards that empower innovators, protect consumers, foster jobs, and strengthen national security.” 

Priestley and Fiefia are co-leaders of a new National Task Force on State AI Policy hosted by the Future Caucus, a nonprofit that encourages “collaborative governance” among younger leaders. 

States have led the way on AI regulation since ChatGPT debuted in November 2022, ushering in the generative AI era. 

Most states have passed restrictions on election-related or intimate deepfakes, or both. Colorado lawmakers passed the nation’s first comprehensive AI law last year. This year, California and New York lawmakers this year approved nation-leading bills to regulate companion chatbots and large, frontier AI models, and Texas adopted an AI regulation bill. 

Government affairs firm MultiState tracked nearly 1,100 AI bills in 50 states this year. The global law firm Orrick’s U.S. AI Law Tracker lists 163 state laws that directly or indirectly implicate AI.

AI companies and the venture capital-backed startup community increasingly view state-level regulatory efforts as a threat and have pushed back forcefully. 

They supported a failed effort this summer in Congress to pass a moratorium on enforcement of state AI regulations, an idea that is likely to return. Now they are preparing to spend money in the 2026 cycle and beyond to elect pro-AI candidates and fight policies they oppose. 

In August, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz; Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and co-founder, and his wife Anna; investors Ron Conway and Joe Lonsdale; and AI company Perplexity committed an initial $100 million to a new national political operation called Leading the Future.

LTF, as it’s known, will operate state and federal PACs along with 501(c)(4) issue advocacy nonprofit organizations, according to a press release announcing the effort. Initially, LTF will operate in California, Illinois, New York and Ohio, with plans to expand nationally.

The PACs will support and oppose candidates while the nonprofits will focus on policy development, legislative scorecards, grassroots engagement and rapid response, the announcement said.

Leading LTF are veteran political strategists Zac Moffatt, founder and CEO of Targeted Victory, and Josh Vlasto, partner at Bamberger & Vlasto. Vlasto has been involved in a similar effort on behalf of the cryptocurrency industry. 

“This is about more than technology. It’s about economic growth, national security, and global leadership,” Moffatt and Vlasto said in a statement. “Leading the Future is here to make sure innovation wins.” 

A day after LTF’s announcement, Meta announced a California-focused super PAC called Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across California, with the purpose of electing state candidates, regardless of party affiliation, who support the U.S. tech industry.

Meta followed up last week with the launch of a national super PAC, called the American Technology Excellence Project, to elect AI-friendly state-level candidates.

“America’s innovation edge is at a crossroads,” said Brian Baker, a Republican strategist who will help run the PAC along with the Democratic consulting firm Hilltop Public Solutions. “We need state legislators who will champion our tech future, not cede it to global adversaries.”  

Meta has said it is prepared to spend tens of millions of dollars to fund each super PAC. 

Groups that advocate for AI guardrails say the industry is out of step with most Americans. 

“Big Tech can buy all the super PACs it wants, but it can’t buy trust,” Michael Kleinman, head of U.S. policy at the Future of Life Institute, said after the first two PACs were announced.

Future of Life this month released the results of a poll that showed strong bipartisan support for AI safety regulations. 

“The American people want AI that is safe, transparent, and accountable, not a handful of tech giants saying that the rules don’t apply to them,” Kleinman said. 

Encode AI, a youth-led organization that’s worked at the state and national level on AI safety and trust issues, launched a California-focused PAC in July. A spokesperson said the PAC has approximately $120,000 mostly from individual donors. 

Encode criticized Meta’s PAC spending.

“We’re witnessing a modern day David v. Goliath playing out in the AI regulatory space,” Sunny Gandhi, Encode AI’s vice president of political affairs, said in a statement last week. “AI is one of the most powerful technologies we’ve ever encountered, and is largely unregulated — contrary to what we’re hearing from Meta about overregulation.”