Senate’s 99–1 AI Moratorium Vote Makes State Preemption Harder

By Grace Kim

According to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation, the Senate voted 99–1 on July 1, 2025, to strip a 10-year moratorium on state AI regulations from a budget reconciliation bill.

Sixteen months later, Democrats took both chambers, according to TechTimes and PPC Land, narrowing the route to a Republican-only moratorium.

What killed the 10-year moratorium?

In spring 2025, House Republicans attached a provision to their budget reconciliation bill that would have barred states from enforcing most AI regulations for a decade. The proposal also tied compliance to federal broadband funding under the BEAD program.

The Senate Commerce Committee said opposition included 17 Republican governors, 40 state attorneys general and groups ranging from the Heritage Foundation to the Center for American Progress.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), then the Commerce Committee’s ranking member, co-sponsored an amendment with Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) to remove the moratorium. Cantwell said: “The Senate came together tonight to say that we can't just run over good state consumer protection laws. States can fight robocalls, deepfakes and provide safe autonomous vehicle laws.”

In the committee’s account, the 99–1 defeat represented a rare bipartisan consensus on AI policy and exposed the political forces that shaped the 2026 midterms.

The vote established that even a Republican Senate would not accept a blanket 10-year freeze on state AI enforcement.

How did the 2026 midterms change the political math?

On November 3, 2026, Democrats won Senate control with approximately 54 seats and the House with a projected majority of up to 244 seats, according to TechTimes and PPC Land.

The campaign focused on inflation, the Iran war and President Trump’s approval rating, which stood at 38% in CBS exit polling, according to TechTimes and PPC Land.

POLITICO, citing NBC exit polls, reported that 56% of voters called AI and data centers a “crucial or major factor” in their vote.

The results ended the unified Republican control that enabled the 2025 preemption attempt. With a Democratic House and a Senate still subject to the 60-vote filibuster, a new budget bill containing a state AI ban would need Democratic support that does not exist, TechTimes reported.

Cantwell, now in line to chair the Commerce Committee, has consistently opposed preemption without strong federal protections in return, according to TechTimes.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have pledged to block any defense bill that includes a moratorium, according to a Markey press release.

POLITICO reported that the pro-industry super PAC Leading the Future launched in August 2025 with roughly $100 million to oppose regulation. A coalition of AI safety advocates, consumer groups and effective altruism-aligned donors built Public First, which ultimately drew roughly $41 million from Anthropic and its CEO Dario Amodei.

The election removed the Republican-only path to a budget-bill moratorium before the new Congress starts on January 3, 2027.

Where do state AI rules now stand?

With a broad federal moratorium off the table, PPC Land said regulatory gravity remains in state capitals.

• Colorado: The rewritten AI Act, SB 26-189, is set to take effect January 1, 2027. A federal court has ordered the attorney general not to enforce the original law or any amending legislation until rulemaking concludes and the court rules.
• California: The Delete Act gave residents a one-stop data-broker deletion tool that processed 242,000 sign-ups in its first eight weeks.
• New York: The RAISE Act on frontier AI safety and its ban on human-posting chatbots for minors take effect in 2027.
• Other states: Lawmakers have enacted or are advancing rules on algorithmic discrimination, data-center siting and synthetic-media disclosure.

The industry’s argument that a patchwork undermines innovation remains unchanged, according to PPC Land. But the election has made the patchwork “a cost of doing business rather than a temporary condition awaiting a federal fix.”

Compliance teams that planned for a single 2027 federal standard now face 20-plus state regimes, PPC Land reported.

State capitals now carry the immediate compliance burden, with no single federal rulebook likely to replace those regimes in 2027.

What will Democrats prioritize in 2027?

Shattered.io identified three legislative priorities for Democrats:

• Consumer protections against data-center-driven electricity costs.
• Independent testing of advanced AI models.
• Liability rules for AI-related harm.

Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) are drafting a framework with a government shutdown power for models that fail safety tests. Sen. Cantwell proposes enforceable standards, pre-release audits and mandatory incident reporting, according to TechTimes and Shattered.io.

The bipartisan FRONTIER Act, backed by Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) and Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.), addresses catastrophic risk and a national framework. Its preemption scope remains unresolved, Shattered.io reported.

Democrats plan to hold hearings on AI safety, data-center impacts and industry practices before any bill advances, using their committee gavels and subpoena power, according to PPC Land and Shattered.io. The House Democratic Commission on AI is also preparing a roadmap for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Shattered.io reported.

The first 2027 action points to oversight and model-safety rules, not a nationwide pause on state enforcement.

Can preemption return through another route?

The preemption question remains open, but not in a budget bill. PPC Land reported that the outgoing Congress returns for a lame-duck session with an agenda centered on the SECURE Data Act, a federal privacy bill with preemption, while AI preemption efforts continue through executive-branch actions.

With Democrats holding congressional majorities starting January 3, 2027, the procedural path for a Republican-only preemption measure has closed, PPC Land said.

The next phase will combine state enforcement with Democratic-led model-safety oversight, while the SECURE Data Act and executive actions keep narrower preemption channels open.