Congress

‘Trying to read the tea leaves’: Ted Cruz offers few clues on his AI agenda

Published

4 months ago

June 25, 2026

Few lawmakers have as much influence over the fate of artificial intelligence legislation as Sen. Ted Cruz, but he’s keeping people guessing about how he’ll use that power.

As chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, the Texas Republican has pledged to convene members to vote on bills that would regulate the AI industry. He asked GOP members of the panel several weeks ago to submit their proposals.

“This markup is designed to move legislation that has a real chance of passing into law,” Cruz said in an interview this week, adding that he was vetting bills depending on “what bipartisan agreement and consensus can be reached.”

Cruz’s aides, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the senator believes the federal government should take “targeted” action in “truly novel circumstances” where existing laws are silent — such as catastrophic risk, deepfakes and chatbots.

But they also concede that GOP committee staff is still reviewing dozens of existing bills, and what measures will make the cut for the scheduled late July markup remain in flux. Senators on the panel also say they haven’t heard from Cruz about his criteria for what AI legislation to put on the agenda.

It’s bringing real uncertainty to what Congress might accomplish on the high-stakes issue this year. It also underscores how Cruz, a one-time presidential candidate who could run again in 2028, is attempting to carefully navigate one of the most politically divisive policy debates of the midterms.

Cruz has even avoided saying whether he’ll allow the committee to vote on an emerging deal between Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and the White House that would bundle a kids’ online safety package with preemptions of specific state laws.

He said this week he “fully expects” that Blackburn’s bill, known as the Kids Online Safety Act, “will be on the next markup as a part of the package addressing AI and children’s safety.” But he declined to say whether he’ll bring up any revised bill text Blackburn brokers with the blessing of President Donald Trump.

A Blackburn spokesperson did not return requests for comment Wednesday, nor did the White House.

The outlook for how Cruz plans to legislate around AI is further clouded by his own record on the issue.

Back in 2024, Cruz was warning against broad regulation of AI, saying that “Big Tech and the Radical Left” were poised to empower the administrative state, kill innovation and cause the U.S. to lose the AI race with China. He pursued efforts to undercut a Biden administration executive order that took a more hands-on approach to regulating the industry.

As Cruz was preparing to take the gavel in the waning days of the Democratic majority, then-Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell of Washington accused him of opposing the inclusion of seven AI bills in a year-end government funding package — even though those bills had been advanced by the committee on a bipartisan basis.

Cruz’s aides disputed this characterization, saying there was no single lawmaker holding up the bills in late 2024 and House GOP leaders had issues, too. Cantwell, now the committee’s senior Democrat, said in an interview Wednesday the measures “would have helped us in regulating some of the biggest national security concerns.”

She added she’s now “trying to read the tea leaves” about what Cruz has planned for the upcoming markup. At least one Republican said he thinks Cruz has undergone a “very significant pivot” when it comes to engagement and interest around AI that could offer some clues.

“He originally had the position that we didn’t need to adopt any AI legislation whatsoever — that we should just allow the market to work,” Rep. Todd Young (R-Ind.), a member of the committee who is heavily involved in AI policy, said in an interview. “My sense is he has adopted a different position now, and I’m gratified by that.”

As for what accounts for the shift, Young said, “you’ll have to ask him why he’s become more inclined to legislate in this space.” But he acknowledged that “many people are coming to recognize” that it would be a mistake to allow the rapidly evolving technology to go unchecked.

Cruz’s aides disagreed with Young’s characterization. They note Cruz championed a measure making it a crime to publish nonconsensual sexual images — including AI-generated content — which was signed into law last year with support from first lady Melania Trump. Cruz is also pushing legislation that would regulate chatbots, or online apps that mimic human conversation and can pose harm for children.

His aides also said Cruz continues to believe too much federal government intervention into AI policy could threaten innovation and stifle freedom of expression.

Adam Thierer, a resident senior fellow at the right-leaning R Street Institute, said Republicans at the start of the Trump administration seemed to be waiting for cues from the White House before taking a firm position. That has changed as the White House scrambles to enact its own rules governing AI while urging Congress to codify a federal regulatory framework.

Cruz tried, and failed, to include a provision in the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer that would have enacted a 10-year moratorium on the ability of states to set their own AI laws. Yet in just one year, Thierer said, the political landscape has transformed, and now preempting state AI laws is basically a nonstarter.

“It’s quite a reversal,” Thierer said. “Even limited preemption has become extraordinarily toxic because a whole bunch of people have come to believe what states are doing benefits them.”

Last fall, Cruz released an AI policy framework that aligned with Trump’s AI action plan, which laid out a “light-touch” regulatory strategy; Cruz’s aides suggested the senator plans to build on this blueprint. In December, Cruz was standing beside Trump for the signing of an executive order that would empower the federal government to evaluate and challenge state AI laws.

“I think they have a heightened sense of urgency, which is understandable because it has become increasingly urgent, and one of the major questions is whether Congress can keep pace with the accelerating rate of change in AI,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) of Republicans.

In the meantime, Cruz is facing tough choices about what bills to advance.

Cantwell said Wednesday she wants to see the seven bills that passed out of committee when she was chair, which she accused Cruz of undermining, taken up again next month. And a refusal to facilitate consideration of a potential Blackburn-White House agreement could put Cruz at odds with the president.

Cruz also could end up alienating colleagues whose support he needs on other legislative priorities in the coming months — including a major bill to overhaul the college sports industry.

Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah), a member of the Commerce Committee who has his own bill targeting chatbots that would go further than Cruz’s proposal, in an interview expressed some sympathy for the chair.

“Look, it’s a tough topic, right? There’s not a lot of consensus, and so anything that he can do to even further the conversation, I welcome,” he said. “I think we need to be having these conversations. I think we need to be having the hearings. Until we do, we won’t get to the right answer.”

Congress

GOP-linked PAC spends over $1M to boost third-party socialist in Ohio Senate race

Published

5 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A GOP-aligned super PAC has more-than tripled its investment in the Ohio Senate race over the last week as it seeks to boost a socialist candidate — an apparent attempt to sink former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown’s chances.

Enough Promises Ohio, which was created last month, has spent a combined $1.58 million to promote Greg Levy and oppose Brown, according to recent filings from the Federal Election Commission. Levy, a candidate with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, is also on the ballot in the tight race for Senate between Brown and Ohio GOP Sen. Jon Husted. He’s running a longshot bid, currently polling at 5 percent, but could siphon away more progressive voters from Brown.

It wouldn’t be the first time this cycle that operatives for a major political party attempted to raise a third-party candidate’s profile to meddle with the outcome. Recent public polling shows a dead heat between Brown and Husted in the race.

The super PAC spent a total of $828,359 on mailers supporting Levy or opposing Brown. Spectrum News, The Washington Post and Axios previously reported Enough Promises Ohio spent $400,000 on such mailers, but the expenditure has since grown.

The group also poured an additional $753,000 into ads supporting Levy and opposing Brown over the weekend, including one video ad on Google that knocks Brown as someone who “sold us out” and boosts “real progressive Greg Levy.”

The campaign finance filings show Enough Promises Ohio used a printing company linked to a Republican political firm, Whistletop Strategies. Whistletop has worked with an affiliate of President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC and lists as its “director” Big Dog Strategies, which helped run Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno’s 2024 election campaign and is a consultant for the Ohio GOP.

Enough Promises Ohio did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Big Dog Strategies.

Amy Natoce, a spokesperson for the Husted campaign, told Blue Light News, “our campaign had no involvement with the group you are referencing. Therefore, we have no comment.”

Levy himself has distanced himself from the PAC, calling its boosting of him an “attempted deception of voters” that’s “a form of digital blackface.” Levy is Black. His spokesperson, Charlie Koenigsmark, also told Blue Light News he and the campaign “completely condemn this attempt to manipulate voters.”

Brown did not respond to a request for comment.

Congress

Capitol agenda: AI experts to school Congress wanted

Published

13 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Artificial intelligence is challenging some lawmakers’ confidence that they have the capacity to regulate it.

The slow pace of Congress and a challenging political environment are already working against lawmakers under pressure to address AI threats. There’s also a significant gap in tech policy expertise.

“We need to dramatically increase the base knowledge of Congress if we’re going to legislate meaningfully,” Rep. Sam Liccardo said in a recent interview.

One big concern is at the staffing level: getting people with a deep understanding of the technology around rank-and-file members. Aides who specialize in tech policy often get lured to private companies with huge salaries that can be hard to resist.

Some lawmakers, like Rep. Mark Takano, are advocating for an in-house hub — something like the long-defunct Office of Technology Assessment, which helped Congress understand emerging technology and its social and policy implications from 1972 until it was scrapped in 1995. A Takano aide said he’ll introduce a bipartisan bill to restore such an office in the coming weeks.

Members have also been leaning on fellows from TechCongress — a nonprofit founded by former congressional aide Travis Moore that places technology experts in member and committee offices.

Moore said in an interview that there are plenty of people who want to work on Capitol Hill, but it’s a matter of “Congress’s will and capacity to absorb that talent.”

Not everybody buys into the theory that staffing will solve the problem. Some conservatives, in particular, have seized on the lack of member expertise to argue for a hands-off regulatory approach.

“We don’t understand it well enough,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who has repeatedly brought in technology experts through the TechCongress fellowship, told reporters this month. “We don’t have the expertise to do it.”

“Do you really trust the members of Congress, who barely understand AI, to write the regulations around something?” added Rep. Eric Burlison in an interview last month.

There are a few members who consider themselves fluent in AI policy, including several who have joined working groups on it. They’ve taken educating their colleagues into their own hands but have not always seen great enthusiasm.

Liccardo, for example, recounted how he has brought in experts to brief lawmakers — including huge AI industry figures like Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic— only to struggle to convince members to attend.

“We have had challenges in the past trying to get folks’ attention to the issues,” he said.

What else we’re watching:

— WRIGHT: LAWMAKERS ARE ‘WRONG’ ON RUSSIA: Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Sunday dismissed bipartisan criticism when asked about lawmakers warning that President Donald Trump’s diesel deal would help finance Russia. “In fact, they are all wrong. They don’t understand what President Trump’s doing,” Wright said on ABC News. Wright also defended Trump’s decision Friday exempting Russia from key sanctions outlined in the late Sen. Lindsey Graham sanctions law, which was enacted just last month and set to take effect Sunday. The moves have drawn bipartisan outcry.

— PILOT BILLS GET COMEDIAN’S HELP — Lawmakers are targeting year-end enactment of a pair of bipartisan bills aimed at helping pilots deal with mental health issues and hazy medication regulations, thanks in part to a comedian with an HBO show. Lawmakers and others credit Nathan Fielder, star of the docu-comedy “The Rehearsal” for raising awareness on the stresses pilots face in the hit show last year. They say Fielder wasn’t actively involved in lobbying despite pleas from some for help. “Frankly, I’m glad he elevated the story,” Rep. Sean Casten, one of the lawmakers leading the mental health legislation, told Safa. After passing the Senate late last month, the two bills are awaiting House action.

Katherine Tully-McManus, Jalen Beckford and Safa Wahidi contributed to this report.

Congress

Wanted: Tech experts to help Congress regulate AI

Published

17 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Lawmakers are under pressure to pass legislation to address the threats from advanced artificial intelligence, but many have serious doubts they have the capacity to regulate the technology’s explosive growth.

Few are expecting lawmakers themselves — some of whom still proudly use flip phones — to become AI experts overnight. But while even congressional Luddites acknowledge there is urgency for Capitol Hill to quickly expand its expertise in tech policy to help with legislating, regulating and conducting effective oversight, there’s no consensus yet on how to achieve it.

“We need to dramatically increase the base knowledge of Congress if we’re going to legislate meaningfully,” Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.) said in a recent interview.

Congress already has a long track record of lagging behind as technological innovations transform the world beyond Washington: It has adopted a largely hands-off approach to regulating the Internet as it integrated into everyday life in the past 40 years, relying instead on existing laws that govern other industries and taking smaller piecemeal bites.

The challenging political environment won’t help speed things along now: Democrats are split over whether the answer is to put guardrails on the AI industry or ban “superintelligence” entirely, while many Republicans — including President Donald Trump — warn that any regulation would stifle innovation and cede ground to China.

Some members consider themselves fluent in AI policy, including several who have joined working groups on AI policy. Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.) have pursued masters degrees in AI and machine learning, in addition to many others who are self-taught.

The “overwhelming number” of lawmakers have some idea of what AI is and what it is capable of, Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-N.C.), co-chair of a House Democratic commission on AI policy, said in a recent interview. But, she added, “None of us can say that we understand where it’s going.”

The larger concern is at the staff level — putting people with real expertise around the rank-and-file members who don’t have the bandwidth or interest in educating themselves on the frontier of the industry. Aides who do specialize in tech policy often get lured to the industry with huge salaries that can be hard to resist.

That’s where Travis Moore, a former congressional staffer, has spent more than a decade trying to help.

In 2015, Moore left his post as legislative director for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and founded TechCongress, a nonprofit that places technology experts in member and committee offices. The hope is that those offices will be convinced to hire those fellows full-time — or at least recognize the need to secure in-house tech policy expertise.

“You should have a technologist at the table to at least mitigate the unknown unknowns,” Moore said, regardless of what members themselves know about technology.

As AI has boomed, so has demand for TechCongress’ fellows: In the last two years, Moore has fielded more than 1,200 applications for about 36 fellowship slots through the program, which does not accept funding from corporations or tech companies.

Of nearly 130 fellows selected through the program since its founding, Moore said 32 were later hired full-time. Two-thirds of all the fellows have pursued careers in public service, either on Capitol Hill or other government roles.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), one of the leaders on AI policy on Capitol Hill, is among the offices that currently employs a TechCongress fellow. The House Judiciary Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) also host fellows.

Moore says his initiative has shown there are plenty of people who want to work on Capitol Hill to help inform some of the most pressing issues of the moment — even when more lucrative salaries in the private sector beckon.

“The constraint is not talent supply,” Moore said in an interview. Rather, he said, it’s a matter of “Congress’s will and capacity to absorb that talent.”

Some on Capitol Hill are advocating for an in-house hub — something like the long-defunct Office of Technology Assessment, which helped Congress understand emerging technology and its social and policy implications from 1972 until it was scrapped in 1995.

Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) has long championed efforts to revive the OTA for years and expects to reintroduce his legislation restoring the office in the coming weeks with bipartisan backing, spokesperson Austin Clark said.

Not everybody buys into the theory that staffing will solve the problem. Some conservatives, in particular, have seized on the lack of member expertise to argue for a hands-off approach to regulation.

“We don’t understand it well enough,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who has repeatedly brought in technology experts through the TechCongress fellowship, told reporters this month. “You can’t address it based on what policymakers know about it on a one-size-fits-all universal basis. … We don’t have the expertise to do it.”

“Do you really trust the members of Congress, who barely understand AI, to write the regulations around something?” added Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) in an interview last month.

Others don’t see a hopeless cause, but a convenient excuse.

“I understand it’s hard, but lots of things we do here are hard,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview, noting that lawmakers have had to bone up quickly on everything from nuclear energy policy to complex weapons systems and advances in health care, like biologic drugs.

“I just think the industry wants us to believe that there’s seven people who understand this, and that’s just not true,” Murphy said, accusing some of his colleagues of “just throwing shit up against the wall to try to figure out how to justify doing nothing.”

A few members on both sides of the aisle have taken educating their colleagues into their own hands. Obernotle says he helped tutor more than two dozen House members through the bipartisan AI working group he chaired in the previous Congress.

Liccardo, who represents parts of Silicon Valley, recounted how he has brought in experts to brief lawmakers — including huge AI industry figures like Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Jensen Huang of Nvidia — only to struggle to convince members to attend.

“We have had challenges in the past trying to get folks’ attention to the issues,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do, I’ll just say, to get everybody up to speed.”

Riley Rogerson, Jordain Carney and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.