Congress

Blue Light News Republican who could get a deal on AI — if his leadership lets him

Published

9 months ago

February 5, 2026

Tech companies desperately want Congress to pass a federal law this year blocking state rules on artificial intelligence, and many think their best shot lies with California Republican Rep. Jay Obernolte, a former computer engineer now serving his third term in the House.

There’s just one problem: House GOP leaders don’t appear to be listening to him.

AI industry lobbyists have been pushing Capitol Hill for months to pass a bill that would preempt the ability of states to enact AI laws, arguing it would stop a patchwork of conflicting state rules from impeding innovation.

Many see Obernolte, who co-chaired a bipartisan AI task force last Congress and has deep relationships across the aisle, as their greatest hope for action before the end of the year. They say his technical acumen and consensus-building approach on AI will be key to clinching an agreement with Democrats, necessary in a politically polarized Washington.

“If there is anyone in the House who can run point and cobble together the pieces on what meaningful federal AI standards and an AI package could look like, it’s Jay Obernolte,” said Tony Samp, principal AI adviser at lobbying firm DLA Piper, in an interview.

Obernolte is currently working on an AI bill that could pair preemption of state AI laws with a framework to regulate the technology, including new research infrastructure and safety checks on advanced AI models — a compromise that senior AI lobbyists now support after Hill Republicans failed twice last year to unilaterally block state AI regulations.

“You need to codify the federal regulatory framework for AI and, if you don’t do that … essentially you’re saying that there’s no regulation,” said Obernolte in a recent interview. “And I don’t blame people for being uncomfortable with that.”

But four senior tech industry representatives who want a deal, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive legislative talks, said Obernolte’s influence has so far been stifled by GOP leadership, and that he’s been largely absent from high-level Hill negotiations over the future of AI policy.

It’s a sign, they said, that Republican leaders may not be serious about reaching an AI compromise, despite President Donald Trump’s recent call for Congress to come up with a solution to thwart states from freelancing. Both the tech industry representatives and some Democrats instead worry that GOP leaders are refusing to budge on their stance that there should be minimal regulation of the technology — a position shared by some venture capitalists and White House officials.

House GOP leaders publicly insist they’re on the same page with Obernolte and share his goal of drafting consensus legislation that would preempt state AI laws, even as they have so far failed to embrace his ideas and, in fact, appear determined to pursue other tracks.

A spokesperson for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said that while the Louisiana Republican supports a relatively hands-off approach to AI regulation, “preempting a patchwork of countless varying state laws does not mean no guardrails.”

Nonetheless, Scalise recently expressed skepticism towards any regulations on the sector — a stance that could make a political compromise on AI harder to achieve.

“A lot of these people that want to limit and regulate any industry, a lot of times, what they’re really trying to do is make it hard to do those things in America,” Scalise told reporters in early January. “We should maintain that edge, and we do it by innovating — not by regulating.”

The four tech representatives said they’ve so far seen little to suggest that leadership is interested in Obernolte’s plan for an AI accord. They said he should have been brought into the preemption effort last year, after Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) fell short in his efforts to insert a ban on state AI rules into the GOP’s tax and spending megabill.

They also said Obernolte’s absence from last fall’s unsuccessful push by House leadership to insert a similar provision into the year-end defense bill was unfortunate, largely because it made a compromise tougher to achieve.

“It was a little surprising that one of their best players wasn’t even in the game during the latest push for federal AI standards,” said Samp.

Connor Chapinski, Obernolte’s communications director, downplayed the characterization that Obernolte is being kept away from the GOP’s high-level AI strategy. In a statement, he said Obernolte remains fully engaged with his leadership and the Trump administration around crafting “thoughtful legislation.”

Athina Lawson, a spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson, in a statement credited Obernolte’s chairmanship of the task force with giving members “a clearer understanding of how to responsibly leverage the opportunities of artificial intelligence.” She said GOP leadership is coordinating with the Trump administration on AI and plans to “work through committees of jurisdiction to build consensus” among Republicans.

The task force’s 255-page report — released by Obernolte and fellow California Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat, in December 2024 — laid out a slew of findings and policy recommendations related to AI. Yet despite some interest from the tech industry, the panel was not renewed by GOP leadership and its recommendations have gone virtually unheeded.

One senior GOP aide who works on AI policy, granted anonymity to discuss internal GOP strategy, said the report was produced under former President Joe Biden and was “somewhat outdated now that we have a new administration, a new dynamic in Congress.”

A senior Democratic aide who was closely involved with the task force, also granted anonymity to speak candidly, said it has become clear over a period of time that “Mr. Obernolte, for better or worse, had been sort of sidelined … He was like their lead guy on AI, put in a corner.”

Some Democrats are now looking to exploit what they perceive as a leadership gap on AI policy on the other side of the aisle. Lieu now co-chairs a new House Democratic Commission on AI, convened by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and co-chaired by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.) and Valerie Foushee (N.C.). In the absence of bipartisan action, they plan to formulate their own plan for regulating the fast-moving technology.

“The White House has led the industry astray, down a bad path,” Lieu said in an interview. “Steve Scalise is very opposed to any kind of legislation at the federal level. … And that’s now resulted in three things the tech industry wanted to avoid, which is, backlash from the public, backlash from bipartisan members of Congress and multiple states regulating their industry.”

Gottheimer, in a recent interview, said, “I think Republicans have certainly ceded the turf.”

There are signs that GOP leaders are starting to feel pressure to legislate on AI. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan — chair of the Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over AI issues like privacy, surveillance and intellectual property — suggested in a Monday interview that “I don’t know about moving anything, but we’re definitely talking about AI.”

Jordan added that one of his staffers had just informed him that his panel should ramp up those discussions.

Gabby Miller contributed to this report.

Congress

Aaron Ford flips Nevada governorship, becoming state’s first Black governor

Published

4 hours ago

November 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrat Aaron Ford won Nevada’s gubernatorial race, ousting Republican incumbent Joe Lombardo and becoming the first Black person elected to lead the battleground state.

Ford’s victory gives Democrats a key pickup and elevates the two-term attorney general, who made his working-class upbringing and ties to organized labor central to his campaign. He joins a growing list of Black governors-elect, following earlier victories by Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia and Republican Rep. Byron Donalds in Florida.

Ford, a native of Dallas, campaigned on building more affordable housing, expanding union apprenticeship programs and repealing the state’s right-to-work law, with backing from the powerful Culinary Union.

His win returns the governor’s office to Democratic control four years after Lombardo defeated Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak. Ford overcame the incumbent’s substantial financial advantage in a race that tested Democrats’ efforts to win over working-class voters.

The result is a turnaround for Democrats in a state Donald Trump carried by 3 percentage points in 2024, and it gives the party an opening to rebuild support in a major battleground state ahead of 2028.

Congress

Arizona, Nebraska voters approve transgender athlete bans

Published

4 hours ago

November 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The conservative movement to bar transgender athletes from women’s sports showed its message could resonate beyond Republican strongholds.

Voters in Arizona — a state with a Democratic governor and senators — approved a ballot initiative further restricting transgender students from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity.

The measure expands the state’s existing ban on trans athletes participating on women’s school sports teams, adds restrictions on locker-room use and defines a person’s sex based on their original birth certificate.

Similar measures in Colorado and Washington are leading in early results, though votes are still being counted. In Nebraska, voters also added a ban to their state constitution.

The issue has found a champion in President Donald Trump, who has pushed a suite of anti-trans federal policies since returning to the White House.

But conservatives had made little progress outside the red states that swiftly passed bans in recent years. The measures on the ballot this year marked the first time voters had the chance to weigh in on the issue. The measures’ success could fuel similar campaigns to bypass resistant legislatures in more states.

Congress

Trump’s two new tormenters: Courts and Congress

Published

4 hours ago

November 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Donald Trump awakens Wednesday boxed in. Already in the pincer grip of federal courts that have slowed his agenda, he now faces a historically powerful incoming Democratic majority in Congress, eager to turn their gavels and subpoena power on their longtime tormentor.

And he’ll face them down while a new crop of Republicans seeks to eclipse him as the leader of their party.

This is how the last chapter of the Trump era in Washington begins.

For Trump, it’s an unfamiliar position. He has spent a decade seeking to project invincibility and has spent the first two years of his second term asserting unprecedented executive power with little pushback from a Republican-controlled Congress. He sought to salvage that reputation with a social media post as Republican losses piled up.

“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” he wrote Tuesday night.

Not exactly a salve for a party in crisis.

Democrats also face a choice: how much of their investigative muscle and political capital are they willing to spend investigating a weakened Trump. The party continues to see Trump as a useful, unifying foil. Some of their incoming members have flirted with seeking to impeach him a third time, though Democratic leaders have not committed to that course.

If there was any doubt about the House’s intent, however, Rep. Robert Garcia — expected to lead the House Oversight Committee — erased it quickly.

“LAWYER UP,” Garcia posted on X Tuesday night, just as news outlets began calling the House for Democrats. Garcia and other House allies have projected a muscular investigative agenda aimed at what they have described as Trump’s corruption and alleged self-enrichment, his abuses of executive power, his misuse of pardons for the politically and financially connected and his decision to empower ICE to lead a mass deportation campaign.

Trump has never willingly ceded the spotlight — and has never needed to. Before Tuesday, he was at his weakest point in 2021, shortly after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol and Republican leaders seemed poised to abandon him. But because he remained politically viable, those leaders quickly returned to the fold, helping engineer his return to power and beat back impeachment and a fusillade of criminal charges.

Now, though, there is no political future for Trump, who is in his final two years of elected office. And it was in that context that he signaled a rare conciliatory approach Tuesday.

“We’re going to work with the Democrats to make sure things go well for our country,” he said in an interview with Blue Light News’s Dasha Burns on Blue Light News Elections Live. “I don’t want to sit here for two years just vetoing everything.”