Exclusive: Republican governors want state AI pause out of budget bill
A group of 17 Republican governors wrote to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday calling for the state AI bill moratorium to be stripped from the reconciliation bill.
The big picture: Many Republican-run states have passed AI-related laws and don't want to see them knocked down.
The letter is led by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and signed by the governors of Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.
The governors wrote in the letter that the provision "threatens to undo all the work states have done to protect our citizens from the misuse of artificial intelligence."
Catch up quick: Earlier on Friday, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the provision does not violate the Byrd Rule as long as its conditions only apply to a $500 million pot of AI deployment grants.
Sanders wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post against the AI moratorium earlier this week.
What they're saying:"In just the past year, states have led on smart regulations of the AI industry that simultaneously protect consumers while also encouraging this ever-developing and critical sector," the governors write.
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Boston Globe
18 minutes ago
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New Englanders clash over Trump's sweeping health reforms
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American Press
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San Francisco Chronicle
21 minutes ago
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Trump is trying to turn California into a police state. Here's what's coming next
The stage is set for one hot summer on America's streets. Last week's U.S. Court of Appeals hearing on whether President Trump exceeded his authority — first, by unilaterally calling up thousands of California's National Guard troops to restore order in roughly six city blocks of Los Angeles and then by deploying hundreds of active-duty Marines specializing in urban warfare — was jaw-dropping. A Trump administration attorney argued before the court that his boss has the unreviewable power to call up the guard, not only as he has already done in the Golden State, but simultaneously in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. And to deploy, alongside these guard members, unlimited numbers of active-duty armed forces, such as the Marines, whose primary mission Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly pledged will focus on 'lethality, warfighting and readiness.' 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The 'legal rationale' the administration has thus far successfully floated to justify these actions was an obscure 1798 law whose Fox News-friendly statutory nomenclature has quickly evolved into a MAGA-embraced, immigrant-bashing, chest-pounding rallying cry: The wording fits perfectly with the outright lies told during Trump's presidential campaign, about how Haitian immigrants were allegedly eating everyone's cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, and how a Venezuelan street gang had somehow turned Aurora, Colo., (conveniently located near an ICE detention center) into a 'war zone.' The Trump administration will almost certainly ride the Alien Enemies Act train until it jumps the court-sanctioned tracks, then simply catch the next train and then the next until they/we/all of us arrive at their chosen destination: A police state. The term 'police state,' as we all know, gets tossed around a lot. But few have a clear idea of what it is. A country becomes a police state when the line between civil and military authority is rendered meaningless. We're not there yet. But here's one scenario of how we might arrive at that fate, using Los Angeles (as Trump is doing in real life) as a case study. The last time a U.S. president sent the National Guard somewhere to address civil unrest was, of course, Los Angeles in 1992 during the riots after police officers were acquitted of the Rodney King beating. The initial request for a federal response originated with the governor, rather than the president. Then, as it is now, local police, such as the Los Angeles Police Department, train and practice alongside National Guard soldiers under a federal mandate known as Defense Support of Civil Authority. These joint preparations occur during weekend training drills of National Guard and reserve units and help to identify possible weaknesses in the chain of command and in general operations. One illustrative example of how crucial a role this authority plays in emergency operations — and how quickly things can turn bad, quickly — comes from the Rodney King riots and their aftermath. As the disturbances were winding down, an L.A. police sergeant who had taken fire some days earlier returned to the scene where shots were fired. With him was a Marine Corps infantry platoon led by a young lieutenant. With the Marines stationed in front of the house, the police sergeant sent two of his men around back. Before starting across the street to investigate, the police sergeant told the Marine lieutenant to 'cover him.' The entire platoon opened up with automatic weapons fire. 'Cover me' means something very different to a Marine than it means to a police officer. To a Marine, trained only for combat, 'cover me' means opening fire when a member of your team begins to advance on a target. Most people have probably seen this in a movie, if not in a modern war video game. That, however, is not what it means to police; it's a request to raise weapons to be ready to fire should the need arise. Fortunately, no one died that day. But we may not be so lucky on today's streets, given the lack of coordination and cooperation endemic to Trump's style of leadership. Should such a tragic incident come to pass, we can expect more civil unrest — possibly even riots — and for Trump to weaponize that straight out of the fascist playbook, something he's already doing with his ICE provocations: Stir something up, wait for your loyal base to call on its dear leader to restore order. Send in more troops, provide that 'iron fist' for which your followers yearn, tighten your grip on power. Wrap yourself in the flag, flood the zone with propaganda, rinse/repeat. The aggressive actions in Los Angeles have not, as of yet, resulted in significant injury and harm to civilians or police. But other cities, other states might not be so lucky. As Trump almost certainly seeks to expand his operations in the coming weeks and months to New York or perhaps Chicago, Democratic governors likely to find themselves in the crosshairs would be well-advised to begin preparing now, while their National Guard is still under their command and control. Make no mistake, America: Our mettle and our intestinal fortitude are about to be tested. We hold out hope that the Supreme Court will issue an emergency ruling telling the president he has exceeded his powers. Especially if people start to die. This would put some daylight between what Trump is trying to pull and his actual official powers. If he then persists in issuing orders to the military, which the court has declared illegal, you can rest assured the military has ways, largely unfamiliar to civilians, to maintain 'good order and discipline' in its ranks. Arresting a superior officer (including a commander-in-chief) may be contemplated where his or her actions warrant such. Especially when that becomes necessary to fulfill their sacred oath to 'protect and defend the Constitution.' Semper fi. Brett Wagner, now retired, served as a professor of national security decision making for the U.S. Naval War College and adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. J. Holmes Armstead, now retired, served as a professor of strategy and international law at the U.S. Naval War College and as a judge advocate general, inspector general and civil affairs officer in the U.S. Army, Army Reserves and National Guard.
