More than 200 state legislators sent a letter to Congress on Tuesday pushing back against a proposal that would block states from enforcing their own artificial intelligence regulations for three years. The coalition, spanning both parties and multiple states, argues that a federal preemption would gut existing protections for children, artists, creators, and workers at a time when AI’s societal footprint is expanding rapidly.
The letter, signed by 203 state lawmakers, lands in the middle of an increasingly contentious fight over who gets to regulate AI in the US.
The preemption fight, explained
Here’s the core issue. A bipartisan draft introduced by Representatives Jay Obernolte and Lori Trahan proposes a three-year preemption specifically targeting state laws that regulate AI model development. In English: if passed, states would be temporarily barred from creating or enforcing their own rules around how AI models are built and trained.
This isn’t the first time state legislators have drawn this line. Back in June 2025, a larger coalition of 260 legislators from all 50 states opposed a far more aggressive proposal: a 10-year moratorium on state AI laws. That proposal was so broadly unpopular that the Senate rejected it by a 99-1 vote in July 2025.
Separately, 36 state attorneys general have also pushed back against any federal ban that would restrict their enforcement authority over AI companies operating within their borders.
The broader regulatory landscape
The AI preemption debate doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Attempts to embed preemption language have surfaced in must-pass legislation like the National Defense Authorization Act and budget reconciliation packages.
The three-year preemption timeline in the Obernolte-Trahan draft is notably shorter than the 10-year moratorium that got crushed last year. That scaling back suggests proponents are reading the room and trying to find a compromise position. Whether 203 state lawmakers and their allies view three years as any more acceptable than ten remains the open question, and Tuesday’s letter strongly suggests they don’t.