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House Republicans caught the tech industry by surprise and sparked backlash from state governments after inserting a provision into their flagship tax bill that would block state and local regulation of artificial intelligence for the next ten years. This short but impactful addition, included in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s broad legislative package, represents a significant victory for the AI industry. Tech companies have long pushed for consistent, minimal regulation as they advance technologies they claim will revolutionize society. Despite its potential scope, the measure faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where procedural constraints may prevent its inclusion in the final version of the GOP bill. “I’m not sure it’ll survive the Byrd Rule,” said Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, referring to the requirement that all elements of a budget reconciliation bill must primarily relate to fiscal matters rather than broader policy initiatives. “That sounds to me like a policy change. I’m not going to speculate what the parliamentarian is going to do but I think it is unlikely to make it,” Cornyn said. Senators in both parties have expressed an interest in artificial intelligence and believe that Congress should take the lead in regulating the technology. But while lawmakers have introduced scores of bills, including some bipartisan efforts, that would impact artificial intelligence, few have seen any meaningful advancement in the deeply divided Congress. RobinRafan named Best Content Creator of 2025 at Kidlon-Powered 4th BIFA Awards An exception is a bipartisan bill expected to be signed into law by President Donald Trump next week that would enact stricter penalties on the distribution of intimate “revenge porn” images, both real and AI-generated, without a person’s consent. “AI doesn’t understand state borders, so it is extraordinarily important for the federal government to be the one that sets interstate commerce. It’s in our Constitution. You can’t have a patchwork of 50 states,” said Sen. Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican. But Moreno said he was unsure if the House’s proposed ban could make it through Senate procedure. The AI provision in the bill states that “no state or political subdivision may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems.” The language could bar regulations on systems ranging from popular commercial models like ChatGPT to those that help make decisions about who gets hired or finds housing. State regulations on AI’s usage in business, research, public utilities, educational settings and government would be banned. The congressional pushback against state-led AI regulation is part of a broader move led by the Trump administration to do away with policies and business approaches that have sought to limit AI’s harms and pervasive bias. Half of all U.S. states so far have enacted legislation regulating AI deepfakes in political campaigns, according to a tracker from the watchdog organization Public Citizen. Most of those laws were passed within the last year, as incidents in democratic elections around the globe in 2024 highlighted the threat of lifelike AI audio clips, videos and images to deceive voters. California state Sen. Scott Wiener called the Republican proposal “truly gross” in a social media post. Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, authored landmark legislation last year that would have created first-in-the-nation safety measures for advanced artificial intelligence models. The bill was vetoed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fellow San Francisco Democrat. “Congress is incapable of meaningful AI regulation to protect the public. It is, however, quite capable of failing to act while also banning states from acting,” Wiener wrote. A bipartisan group of dozens of state attorneys general also sent a letter to Congress on Friday opposing the bill. “AI brings real promise, but also real danger, and South Carolina has been doing the hard work to protect our citizens,” said South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, a Republican, in a statement. “Now, instead of stepping up with real solutions, Congress wants to tie our hands and push a one-size-fits-all mandate from Washington without a clear direction. That’s not leadership, that’s federal overreach.” As the debate unfolds, AI industry leaders are pressing ahead on research while competing with rivals to develop the best — and most widely used —AI systems. They have pushed federal lawmakers for uniform and unintrusive rules on the technology, saying they need to move quickly on the latest models to compete with Chinese firms. Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, testified in a Senate hearing last week that a “patchwork” of AI regulations “would be quite burdensome and significantly impair our ability to do what we need to do.” “One federal framework, that is light touch, that we can understand and that lets us move with the speed that this moment calls for seems important and fine,” Altman told Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican. And Sen. Ted Cruz floated the idea of a 10-year “learning period” for AI at the same hearing, which included three other tech company executives. “Would you support a 10-year learning period on states issuing comprehensive AI regulation, or some form of federal preemption to create an even playing field for AI developers and employers?” asked the Texas Republican. Altman responded that he was “not sure what a 10-year learning period means, but I think having one federal approach focused on light touch and an even playing field sounds great to me.”        

House Republicans flailed through a long second day of fruitless balloting Wednesday, unable to either elect their leader Kevin McCarthy as House speaker or come up with a new strategy to end the political chaos that has tarnished the start of their new majority. Yet McCarthy wasn’t giving up, even after the fourth, fifth and sixth ballots produced no better outcome and he was left trying to call off a night-time session. Even that was controversial, as the House voted 216-214 — amid shouting and crowding —to adjourn for the night. “No deal yet,” McCarthy said shortly before that as he left a lengthy closed-door dinner-time meeting with key holdouts and his own allies. “But a lot of progress.” No progress at all was evident though the day of vote-after-vote-after vote as Republicans tried to elevate McCarthy into the top job. The ballots were producing almost the same outcome, 20 conservative holdouts still refusing to support him, and leaving him far short of the 218 typically needed to win the gavel. In fact, McCarthy saw his support slip to 201, as one fellow Republican switched to vote simply present. Seeing no quick way out of the political standoff, Republicans voted abruptly late in the day to adjourn for a few hours as they desperately searched for an endgame to the chaos of their own making. They were due back in the evening, but McCarthy wanted to take a break until Thursday. “I think people need to work a little more,” McCarthy said. "I don’t think a vote tonight would make any difference. But a vote in the future could.” But even a simple motion to adjourn erupted into a floor fight, with Democrats and some Republicans insisting on a lengthy vote. McCarthy, the California Republican, vowed to fight to the finish for the speaker's job despite the grueling spectacle, unlike any in modern times, that threw the new majority into tumult for the first days of the new Congress. Animated private discussions broke out on the chamber floor and in huddled meeting throughout the Capitol between McCarthy supporters and detractors searching for an offramp. Read more: Ex-combat pilot's victory in the US House solidifies Republican control “Well, it’s Groundhog Day,” said Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., in nominating McCarthy on the sixth ballot. She said, “To all Americans watching right now, We hear you. And we will get through this — no matter how messy.” But the right-flank conservatives, led by the Freedom Caucus and aligned with Donald Trump, appeared emboldened by the standoff — though Trump publicly backed McCarthy, “This is actually an invigorating day for America,” said Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who was nominated three times by his conservative colleagues as an alternative. “There’s a lot of members in the chamber who want to have serious conversations about how we can bring this all to a close and elect a speaker.” The House gaveled in at noon, but no other work could be done — swearing in new members, forming committees, tackling legislation, investigating the Biden administration — until the speaker was elected. “I still have the most votes,” McCarthy said at the start of the session. “At the end of the day, we’ll be able to get there.” But the dynamic proved no different from Day One, as Democrats re-upped their leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, for speaker, and Donalds offered his challenge to McCarthy in another history making moment. Both Jeffries and Donalds are Black. “This country needs leadership,” said Rep. Chip Roy, the Texas Republican noting the first time in history two Black Americans were nominated for the high office, and lawmakers from both parties rose to applaud. It was the first time in 100 years that a nominee for House speaker could not take the gavel on the first vote, but McCarthy appeared undeterred. Instead, he vowed to fight to the finish. The disorganized start to the new Congress pointed to difficulties ahead with Republicans now in control of the House. President Joe Biden, departing the White House for a bipartisan event in Kentucky with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, said “the rest of the world is looking” at the scene on the House floor. “I just think it’s really embarrassing it’s taking so long," Biden said. “I have no idea” who will prevail. Tensions flared among the new House majority as their campaign promises stalled out. Not since 1923 has a speaker's election gone to multiple ballots, and the longest and most grueling fight for the gavel started in late 1855 and dragged out for two months, with 133 ballots, during debates over slavery in the run-up to the Civil War. A new generation of conservative Republicans, many aligned with Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda, want to upend business as usual in Washington, and were committed to stopping McCarthy’s rise without concessions to their priorities. Read more: GOP's narrow House victory complicates its ambitious agenda But even Trump's strongest supporters disagreed on this issue. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a firm Colorado conservative who nominated Donalds the second time, called on the former president to tell McCarthy, “`Sir, you do not have the votes and it’s time to withdraw.” Earlier Wednesday, Trump had done the opposite, urging Republicans to vote for McCarthy. “Close the deal, take the victory," he wrote on his social media site, using all capital letters. “Do not turn a great triumph into a giant & embarrassing defeat.” As the spectacle of voting dragged on, McCarthy's backers implored the holdouts to fall in line for the California Republican. “I do think members on both sides of this are getting a lot of pressure now,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. “So I think the message from home is, ‘Hey, sort this stuff out, we don’t have time for the small stuff and the egos.’” The standoff over McCarthy has been building since Republicans won the House majority in the midterm elections. While the Senate remains in Democratic hands, barely, House Republicans are eager to confront Biden after two years of the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress. The conservative Freedom Caucus led the opposition to McCarthy, believing he’s neither conservative enough nor tough enough to battle Democrats. To win support, McCarthy has already agreed to many of the demands of the Freedom Caucus, who have been agitating for rules changes and other concessions that give rank-and-file members more influence in the legislative process. He has been here before, having bowed out of the speakers race in 2015 when he failed to win over conservatives. "Everything’s on the table," said ally Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. — except, he said, having McCarthy step aside. “Not at all. That is not on the table.” Democrats enthusiastically nominated Jeffries, who is taking over as party leader, as their choice for speaker. He won the most votes overall, 212. If McCarthy could win 213 votes, and then persuade the remaining naysayers to simply vote present, he would be able to lower the threshold required under the rules to have the majority. It's a strategy former House speakers, including outgoing Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Speaker John Boehner had used when they confronted opposition, winning the gavel with fewer than 218 votes. One Republican, Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, voted present on multiple rounds, but it made no difference in the immediate outcome.

House Republicans decided Wednesday to stand by two GOP lawmakers who have polarized the party, voting to retain Rep. Liz Cheney as their No. 3 leader and saying they’d fight a Democratic push to kick Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene off her committees.