Results showed a wide majority of Obernolte and Trahan’s respective constituents oppose efforts to weaken AI catastrophic risk protection and water down chatbot safety laws
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, The Tech Oversight Project released surveys from Republican Congressman Jay Obernolte’s (CA-23) and Democratic Congresswoman Lori Trahan’s (MA-3) respective districts showing widespread opposition to their AI agenda. Their bill would block states from developing or enforcing any law that relates to the development of an artificial intelligence model, which creates unintended consequences that open a mile-wide legal loophole for Big Tech companies to exploit. This would allow them to claim that laws like the Kids Code model legislation, AI chatbot safety bills, civil rights protections against racial, gender, or age bias, and other consumer protections would fall under model development use.
The CA-23 survey took place from May 14th to May 15th and surveyed 866 likely voters. The margin of error is 3.3%. View the survey results here.
The MA-3 survey took place from May 19th to May 20th and surveyed 637 likely voters. The margin of error is 3.9%. View the survey results here.
“Big Tech companies are rapidly developing frontier AI models and changing the way our economy and society operate in real-time, and while the pressure to act is understandable, there needs to be twice as much pressure to get this right. The Obernolte-Trahan bill replaces a state floor with a federal ceiling and trades away existing and future child safety, civil rights, and consumer protection laws for nothing in return. This gives Big Tech companies like OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Anthropic more power, not less, by granting them maximalist preemption and the power to shape enforcement through the courts. This is a bad deal, and Obernolte and Trahan’s constituents know it too,” said Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of The Tech Oversight Project. “Big Tech has a long, storied history of exploiting vague, opaque legislative language to evade transparency and accountability, and if the Obernolte-Trahan bill passes, it will grant Big Tech companies massive amnesty where there wasn’t one before and rob the public of being able to use every tool possible to shape how AI affects our lives. It is our sincere hope that Democrats and Republicans alike stop this AI amnesty bill from moving forward.”
Late last month, The Tech Oversight Project led a group of over 40 child safety, labor, environmental, and watchdog organizations in urging Congresswoman Trahan to reject any deal that would include state AI laws.
CA-23 Topline Results:
- 56% of Obernolte’s surveyed constituents opposed the Congressman’s efforts to weaken California’s AI laws governing catastrophic risk.
- 43% of respondents said they would be less likely to support a Congressional candidate who supported weakening those California laws.
- 58% of Californians from the 23rd District said that they opposed Obernolte’s efforts to weaken California chatbot laws.
- Over half of Obernolte’s surveyed constituents (53%) said they would be less likely to back a candidate for Congress if they supported watering down chatbot protections.
- 60% of Obernolte’s survey constituents said that they opposed Congressional efforts to speed up the permitting process for data center construction by bypassing input from local communities.
- 56% of Californians from the 23rd District said they would be less likely to support a candidate for Congress if they backed such an effort.
MA-3 Topline Results:
- 63% of Trahan’s surveyed constituents opposed the Congresswoman’s efforts to weaken existing laws governing catastrophic risk.
- 58% of respondents said they would be less likely to support a Congressional candidate who supported weakening those laws.
- 71% of Bay Staters from the 3rd District said that they opposed Trahan’s efforts to weaken Massachusetts chatbot laws.
- Two-thirds of Trahan’s constituents (66%) said they would be less likely to back a candidate for Congress if that candidate supported watering down chatbot protections.
- 51% of Trahan’s constituents had serious concerns about Trahan backing policies supported by the same Big Tech executives funding President Trump’s ballroom and campaign.
