Your weekly look at the intersection of AI, advocacy, and politics from the team at MFStrategies | www.MFStrategies.com
The Trump FTC is now asserting the power to judge whether AI outputs are accurate, and it's using that authority to steamroll state-level AI laws along the way.
At the same time, governors from both parties are scrambling to regulate campaign deepfakes, and California is staring down a choice between putting guardrails on its AI economy or letting it run loose. Then there's the nonprofit sector, where algorithms are quietly being used to deny people food and shelter with zero appeals process, all in a policy gap that the federal government has simply walked away from.
What seemed like bipartisan agreement on oversight is splintering into turf wars over who actually gets to define regulation: Is it Washington appointees enforcing ideological conformity? States writing a patchwork of conflicting disclosure rules? Or nobody?
The real question at this point isn't whether AI gets regulated. It's whether whatever regulation does show up is designed to protect people or to consolidate power.
The
Oklahoman Takeaway At the National
Governors Association summer meeting on July 30, Oklahoma Governor
Kevin Stitt pushed for state-level laws on AI in political campaigns,
mentioning he was considering calling a special session to address it.
He pointed out that 31 states have already passed such laws. The
following day, the NGA announced a $1 million partnership with RAISE
US aimed at helping states develop AI policy frameworks. Maryland
Governor Wes Moore, who is set to take over as NGA chairman, noted
that his state already has laws on the books that prevent AI from
being used in campaigns. Why it matters Governors from
both parties are pushing hard on AI deepfake regulation, and that
pressure could lead to a patchwork of state disclosure and labeling
laws well before Congress gets around to acting. For campaigns using
synthetic media, this creates real compliance headaches, since vendors
will have to tweak their processes to match whatever each state
requires. There will almost certainly be legal battles over where the
line falls between something misleading and something that's clearly
satire. And consultants who put out AI-generated content without
proper labels? They're going to find themselves on the hook in ways
they haven't had to worry about before. |
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Electronic Frontier Foundation Takeaway In July, the FTC
put out a proposed policy that would give the agency power to judge
whether AI outputs are accurate. The proposal claims authority to
override state AI laws and threatens companies with enforcement action
if they don't comply. EFF and civil rights groups responded with joint
comments calling for the proposal to be withdrawn entirely. Their
argument: it violates the First Amendment by turning the government
into the arbiter of truth, it goes beyond what the FTC is legally
allowed to do when it comes to preempting state law, and it amounts to
a vague jawboning scheme designed to pressure AI developers into
falling in line with the Trump administration's ideology. The whole
thing traces back to Trump's "Preventing Woke AI" executive
order. Why it matters The FTC is now asserting the
authority to evaluate AI accuracy and preempt state-level AI laws. In
practice, this opens a path toward viewpoint-driven enforcement shaped
by White House ideology. It also hands the administration a tool to
push companies toward self-censoring their AI outputs, all while
blocking state regulations that address bias in hiring, housing, or
healthcare. For campaigns and advocacy groups, the result is a fog of
uncertainty around which messages or tools might invite federal
scrutiny. |
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Ipsos Takeaway Recent Ipsos
polling finds that Republicans and Democrats actually agree on
something: the government should be regulating AI. Majorities in both
parties want oversight when it comes to economic stability and public
safety, and voters on both sides seem more comfortable with guardrails
than with Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" mentality.
That said, the consensus fractures on specifics like
anti-discrimination enforcement and environmental concerns. One thing
pollsters are watching closely: if AI starts wiping out jobs at
companies people already distrust, the political fallout could be
fierce, and it won't be limited to one party. Why it
matters Bipartisan support for AI regulation is one of the few
areas where both parties actually agree, but that agreement hands real
leverage to whoever gets to define what 'oversight' looks like in
practice. If job losses start piling up, populist lawmakers on both
sides will almost certainly use worker anger against tech companies
and their executives. Campaigns need to keep an eye on discrimination
and environmental concerns in particular. Those are the issues most
likely to blow up the current consensus and put candidates in a
position where they have to pick a lane. |
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StateScoop Takeaway California's
governor's race this November comes down to a pretty simple question:
who gets to set the rules for AI, cybersecurity spending, and
government tech for 40 million people living in one of the world's
biggest tech economies? Democrat Xavier Becerra is pushing for tougher
AI safety laws, stronger worker protections, and publicly funded AI
infrastructure through CalCompute. Republican Steve Hilton wants to go
the other direction, building a state-level version of the federal
Department of Government Efficiency to slash regulations and speed up
permitting. They actually agree on one thing: using AI to improve
state services like permitting and benefits delivery. Where they split
is on the bigger question of whether government should be actively
regulating AI or stepping back and letting the market figure it
out. Why it matters Whoever wins the California
governor's race will have a lot of say over AI procurement, safety
enforcement, and data center permitting. Both candidates want to
expand AI use, but they're far apart on how much regulation should
come with it. That gap matters for state vendors trying to plan ahead,
for agencies working against compliance deadlines, and for local
governments that have been using California's approach as a template
for their own AI rules. There's also a bigger political question here:
campaigns are paying attention to whether tech policy moves votes, and
this race could show whether people care more about moving fast on
innovation or holding algorithms to account. |
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The
Fulcrum Takeaway A growing number
of nonprofits in the U.S. have started relying on AI algorithms to
make calls about who qualifies for food assistance, emergency shelter,
and medical referrals. The problem is that these organizations aren't
bound by the same legal protections, due process requirements, or
oversight mechanisms that govern welfare decisions made by government
agencies. Studies have found that the algorithms in question can
replicate existing inequalities and end up turning away the people who
are most in need of help. Worse, there's no formal appeals process for
someone who gets denied. And right now, federal AI policy doesn't
cover nonprofit welfare delivery at all, which means algorithmic
decision-making in social services is running with almost no
accountability. Why it matters The original text used an em dash,
had a clipped and directive tone ('Expect compliance pressure'), and
relied on sentence fragments that could read as AI-generated
shorthand. The rewrite removes the em dash, expands fragments into
full sentences, uses natural transitions ('On top of that,' 'which
means'), and adopts a conversational but informative register that
reads like a human newsletter writer explaining a policy issue to
their audience. |
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Worth Thinking About This Week
"The
government may not install itself as the arbiter of truth." -EFF,
Public Knowledge, and Fight for the
Future |
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