States hoping to maintain their authority to govern the quickly developing technology will politically and legally oppose U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order to prohibit state laws on artificial intelligence that he claims hamper progress.
Tech companies, who contend that a patchwork of state rules inhibits U.S. competition with China on AI, have won the order directing federal agencies to sue and withdraw funds from states whose AI legislation the administration deems problematic.
However, experts indicated that the Trump administration will have legal challenges when putting it into practice, as well as possible resistance from Republican states.
According to Joel Thayer, director of the Digital Progress Institute, "the administration can not rely on a lot of legal authority to enforce a significant portion of the order."
The Commerce Department is instructed under one of the order's main enforcement tools to prevent states with burdensome AI regulations from participating in the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program (BEAD).
Some of the president's most ardent rural followers may disagree with the directive. Increasing Internet connectivity in rural areas a crucial Trump voting demographic requires BEAD funding. Compared to his margins in 2020 and 2016, he won rural voters by 40 percentage points (69%-29%) in 2024.
The attempt to link the financing to AI regulations is uncertain, according to Dean Ball, a former White House official who contributed to the AI Action Plan the administration released in the summer.
Courts would take into account the fact that several states have already secured financial pre-approval and how closely the AI legislation correspond to the broadband statute's goals.
Another important legal question will be whether Congress intended to give the administration control over state AI regulation when it approved broadband funding, he added.
"I think the administration has a 30 to 35% chance of this working legally," Ball stated. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas is among the Republican governors who have previously voiced opposition to the federal government obstructing state legislation.
Last month, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis referred to Congress's then-pending attempt to prevent states from regulating AI as a "subsidy to Big Tech." Data privacy, parental controls, and consumer protections are all included in DeSantis' proposed AI bill of rights.
Additionally, the order requires the Department of Justice to challenge state laws that interfere with interstate commerce, which is a violation of the Constitution.
Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm, has backed that claim, citing the Supreme Court's ruling that the Constitution indirectly restricts state legislative power.
According to Slade Bond, a former DOJ official who works with Americans for Responsible Innovation, a group that has resisted blocking state AI laws, courts have rejected prior attempts to prohibit state privacy legislation by citing the "dormant commerce clause" of the Constitution.
"The lodestone of the constitutional analysis is really about, are you treating out-of-state businesses differently than in-state businesses?" Bond remarked.
