John,

Across the country, lawmakers and community leaders are stepping up to confront the real harms of artificial intelligence, from discriminatory algorithms to deepfake political propaganda and automated systems that shape access to jobs, housing, and healthcare. These fights are happening in statehouses because federal leaders have failed to act, leaving states to defend their residents when Congress will not.

Now Republicans in Congress want to shut that down entirely. They are trying to attach a sweeping ten-year moratorium on all state and local AI regulation to must-pass bills. If they succeed, every state attorney general, every privacy agency, every civil rights office, every city council, and every voter loses the power to govern how AI impacts democracy. It is a federal power grab designed to silence the people most harmed by unaccountable technology.

This ban hands unprecedented influence to the same corporations already cashing in on the AI boom. Seven tech giants now control nearly 40% of the entire stock market. They are making record-breaking profits from models that replicate bias, turbo-charge misinformation, and automate decision-making with no transparency.

States like Illinois, California, New York, and Maryland have passed or advanced laws defending biometric privacy, ensuring fair automated hiring, and protecting tenants from algorithmic discrimination. These are democratic checks on concentrated power. Republicans’ proposed ban would wipe them out overnight.

Tell Congress to reject any attempt, through the NDAA, appropriations, or any other bill, to impose a nationwide halt on state and local AI regulation.

If Congress allows this moratorium to pass, the consequences will extend far beyond technology.

A ban like this tells every community that when Big Tech objects, democracy must stand down. It invites corporations to shape not just products and markets, but public policy itself. And it locks states out of responding to everything from AI-driven voter suppression to automated workplace surveillance to synthetic media used to manipulate elections.

We’ve stopped this scheme before. Public pressure forced lawmakers to strip this ban out of the last “Big Ugly” legislative package. That victory proved something powerful: when people demand accountability, even the biggest corporations and their lobbyists can be defeated.

Now Republicans are trying again, hoping no one notices. We cannot let them succeed.

Tell Congress to block any provision that bans state or local AI regulation. Defend democracy, defend accountability, and defend the right of every community to protect itself from algorithmic harm.

Together, we can stop this power grab and ensure that AI is governed by the public, not by profit.

- DFA AF Team