State Lawmakers Renew Bipartisan AI Effort After Moratorium Fails in Senate
Legislators in Texas, Maryland and Vermont say they will renew bipartisan efforts to regulate AI at the state level after the U.S. Senate on Tuesday dropped its proposed AI moratorium.
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Texas Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R), Maryland Sen. Katie Fry Hester (D) and Vermont Rep. Monique Priestley (D) said members of their multistate AI working group plan to meet Wednesday to discuss the path forward.
Capriglione, primary author of Texas’ comprehensive privacy and AI laws, told us Tuesday he expects Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) to be as active on the AI enforcement front as he has been on privacy. The Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (TRAIGA) goes into effect in January 2026.
“I think everybody now realizes how close to impossible it would be to create a federal AI model,” said Capriglione. “I have full confidence that the attorney general will enforce and be proactive in protecting constituents” from AI-related harms.
Capriglione added that he voiced his opposition to the moratorium directly to Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, as well as the staff of Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
The Senate on Tuesday voted 99-1 on an amendment to strip the AI moratorium language from the budget package after a deal between Cruz and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., fell through. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, joined Blackburn in sponsoring an amendment with Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.
The AI moratorium proposal divided Republicans for weeks leading up to the official vote. With Blackburn abandoning the Cruz deal and Collins joining the opposition, there were at least four Republicans on the record against the proposal Monday night. Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., publicly opposed the measure in June. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., was the only vote against the Cantwell-Blackburn amendment stripping the AI language Tuesday.
According to Cantwell’s office, Blackburn approached Cantwell about collaborating on a bipartisan amendment after the deal fell through with Cruz.
Blackburn said in a statement Monday night: “For as long as I’ve been in Congress, I’ve worked alongside federal and state legislators, parents seeking to protect their kids online, and the creative community in Tennessee to fight back against Big Tech’s exploitation by passing legislation to govern the virtual space. While I appreciate Chairman Cruz’s efforts to find acceptable language that allows states to protect their citizens from the abuses of AI, the current language is not acceptable to those who need these protections the most.”
Markey said in a statement he was “proud” to partner with Cantwell and Blackburn and is looking “forward to working with my colleagues to develop responsible guardrails for AI.”
Cruz said on the floor: “Our deal would have passed easily, but a couple of hours ago, the other side backed out. The agreement protected kids and protected the rights of creative artists, but outside interests opposed that deal."
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., a proponent of the AI moratorium, told us Tuesday that the final text was “simply not workable. It wasn’t going to fix the problem. I’d much rather see the Commerce Committee and the Judiciary Committee get together with industry, both intellectual property folks and AI, and work out a solution long-term.”
Priestley said the multistate AI working group will discuss the group’s formal structure moving forward. She said the federal moratorium ultimately brought state legislators from both parties closer together on tech policy: “So many people were keeping an eye on this bill.”
The moratorium would have impacted state legislation and laws regulating privacy, cybersecurity, energy and health care, said Hester. “AI is being used in every single aspect of what the private sector is doing right now,” she noted. “We’re closest to our citizens and respond more quickly than the federal government. The moratorium proposed a huge risk to consumer safety.”
The National Conference of State Legislatures welcomed the moratorium’s removal: “This action sends a strong message that states will stay on the front lines in safely advancing AI innovations while protecting our constituents. We thank the Senate for listening to NCSL's call to strip this provision."