BURSTFacing overwhelming opposition from both Democrats and Republicans, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accepted defeat and joined a 99-1 vote against his own plan to punish states that regulate artificial intelligence.
"The Senate came together tonight to say that we can't just run over good state consumer protection laws," Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said. The Cruz plan would have thwarted state laws related to robocalls, deepfakes, and autonomous vehicles, she said.
The House previously approved a budget bill with a provision to ban state AI regulation for 10 years. The Senate has a rule against including "extraneous matter" in budget reconciliation legislation, which Cruz tried to get around by proposing a 10-year moratorium in which states would be shut out of a $42 billion broadband deployment fund if they try to regulate AI.