Texas is constructed for progress: It is bought land, expertise, and a deep-seated cultural bias towards constructing over banning. For that reason, corporations like Tesla, Meta, and Nvidia are pouring billions into the state. The state was completely positioned to guide America’s synthetic intelligence (AI) revolution—till lawmakers almost despatched these corporations fleeing to different states.
The unique textual content of Texas Home Invoice 149—the Texas Accountable AI Governance Act (TRAIGA)—was a blueprint for the best way to kill innovation. Modeled after Europe’s AI Act and former President Joe Biden’s now-defunct AI Invoice of Rights, it proposed audits, sweeping threat classifications, and imprecise compliance mandates that will’ve buried startups whereas massive incumbents wouldn’t have been considerably hindered. It was regulation based mostly on worry, not information.
However to their credit score, Texas lawmakers course-corrected. On March 14, Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R–Keller) launched a revised model of TRAIGA that ditched the open-ended audits, the broad “high-risk AI” definitions, and the compliance hurdles that will’ve utilized equally to spam filters and autonomous autos. The brand new model mirrored a rising realization: You possibly can shield shoppers with out kneecapping innovators.
The invoice has handed the Home and is heading to the Senate—although up to now has been left pending in committee.
Even the substitute invoice is not good. H.B. 149 would create a brand new state AI council, impose heavy reporting mandates, and open the door to mission creep with out a clear limiting precept. It comes with a price ticket north of $25 million and carves out roles for 20 new full-time state workers. Not precisely the small-government vitality Texas needs to be identified for.
The Texas Senate has the prospect to complete what the Home began by tightening the invoice’s scope and guarding towards bureaucratic bloat. Texas can lead in AI by scaling again paperwork, not constructing a regulatory empire. Easy fixes may get this invoice throughout the end line: sundown the AI Council by 2030 except renewed by the Texas legislature, cap the funds, exempt open-source and small companies from enforcement overreach, and tie enforcement to precise shopper hurt relatively than theoretical dangers.
Virginia already nailed this. Simply 10 days after the revised Texas invoice was launched, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed H.B. 2094, a equally heavy-handed AI invoice. His message was clear—the laws would stifle job creation, repel enterprise funding, and punish smaller companies that do not have authorized departments on pace dial. It will’ve price the state’s AI ecosystem almost $30 million in compliance overhead.
Even California bought the memo. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed S.B. 1047, which might have imposed strict legal responsibility, obligatory “kill switches,” and speculative guidelines focusing on general-purpose AI. Newsom warned towards taking a “California-only” strategy that wasn’t backed by science or nationwide coordination. When California, of all locations, warns towards overregulating tech, you realize the pendulum is swinging.
These three states had been being bought the identical defective product.
A bipartisan coalition “of over 200 state lawmakers from greater than 45 states“ referred to as the Multistate AI Policymaker Working Group (MAP-WG) has been spamming statehouses with copypasta laws designed to look considerate, however constructed on the identical anti-tech, anti-growth assumptions. These payments purpose to manage hypothetical dangers, not actual harms, despite the fact that there are current civil rights and shopper safety legal guidelines that already deal with the latter.
Colorado was the take a look at case. It handed considered one of these payments final 12 months and has been cleansing up the mess ever since. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis needed to create an AI activity power to take care of considerations from startups and mid-sized corporations warning of job losses, capital flight, and regulatory confusion. The duty power supplied little greater than imprecise options and no actual fixes.
In the meantime, the federal stance has shifted laborious within the different path. President Donald Trump repealed Biden’s AI govt order in January, changing it with a framework centered on tearing down limitations to innovation and sustaining U.S. dominance within the discipline. Vice President J.D. Vance, talking in Paris, nailed the issue: “Extreme regulation of the AI sector may kill a transformative business simply because it’s taking off.”
Texas has an opportunity to guide—not simply by avoiding Europe’s errors, however by setting a nationwide normal for the best way to do AI regulation proper: centered, restricted, and innovation-first.
Different states, like New York, are nonetheless caught combating yesterday’s fears. Texas is poised to construct tomorrow’s breakthroughs—if lawmakers end the job within the Senate.
Texas is constructed for progress: It is bought land, expertise, and a deep-seated cultural bias towards constructing over banning. For that reason, corporations like Tesla, Meta, and Nvidia are pouring billions into the state. The state was completely positioned to guide America’s synthetic intelligence (AI) revolution—till lawmakers almost despatched these corporations fleeing to different states.
The unique textual content of Texas Home Invoice 149—the Texas Accountable AI Governance Act (TRAIGA)—was a blueprint for the best way to kill innovation. Modeled after Europe’s AI Act and former President Joe Biden’s now-defunct AI Invoice of Rights, it proposed audits, sweeping threat classifications, and imprecise compliance mandates that will’ve buried startups whereas massive incumbents wouldn’t have been considerably hindered. It was regulation based mostly on worry, not information.
However to their credit score, Texas lawmakers course-corrected. On March 14, Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R–Keller) launched a revised model of TRAIGA that ditched the open-ended audits, the broad “high-risk AI” definitions, and the compliance hurdles that will’ve utilized equally to spam filters and autonomous autos. The brand new model mirrored a rising realization: You possibly can shield shoppers with out kneecapping innovators.
The invoice has handed the Home and is heading to the Senate—although up to now has been left pending in committee.
Even the substitute invoice is not good. H.B. 149 would create a brand new state AI council, impose heavy reporting mandates, and open the door to mission creep with out a clear limiting precept. It comes with a price ticket north of $25 million and carves out roles for 20 new full-time state workers. Not precisely the small-government vitality Texas needs to be identified for.
The Texas Senate has the prospect to complete what the Home began by tightening the invoice’s scope and guarding towards bureaucratic bloat. Texas can lead in AI by scaling again paperwork, not constructing a regulatory empire. Easy fixes may get this invoice throughout the end line: sundown the AI Council by 2030 except renewed by the Texas legislature, cap the funds, exempt open-source and small companies from enforcement overreach, and tie enforcement to precise shopper hurt relatively than theoretical dangers.
Virginia already nailed this. Simply 10 days after the revised Texas invoice was launched, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed H.B. 2094, a equally heavy-handed AI invoice. His message was clear—the laws would stifle job creation, repel enterprise funding, and punish smaller companies that do not have authorized departments on pace dial. It will’ve price the state’s AI ecosystem almost $30 million in compliance overhead.
Even California bought the memo. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed S.B. 1047, which might have imposed strict legal responsibility, obligatory “kill switches,” and speculative guidelines focusing on general-purpose AI. Newsom warned towards taking a “California-only” strategy that wasn’t backed by science or nationwide coordination. When California, of all locations, warns towards overregulating tech, you realize the pendulum is swinging.
These three states had been being bought the identical defective product.
A bipartisan coalition “of over 200 state lawmakers from greater than 45 states“ referred to as the Multistate AI Policymaker Working Group (MAP-WG) has been spamming statehouses with copypasta laws designed to look considerate, however constructed on the identical anti-tech, anti-growth assumptions. These payments purpose to manage hypothetical dangers, not actual harms, despite the fact that there are current civil rights and shopper safety legal guidelines that already deal with the latter.
Colorado was the take a look at case. It handed considered one of these payments final 12 months and has been cleansing up the mess ever since. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis needed to create an AI activity power to take care of considerations from startups and mid-sized corporations warning of job losses, capital flight, and regulatory confusion. The duty power supplied little greater than imprecise options and no actual fixes.
In the meantime, the federal stance has shifted laborious within the different path. President Donald Trump repealed Biden’s AI govt order in January, changing it with a framework centered on tearing down limitations to innovation and sustaining U.S. dominance within the discipline. Vice President J.D. Vance, talking in Paris, nailed the issue: “Extreme regulation of the AI sector may kill a transformative business simply because it’s taking off.”
Texas has an opportunity to guide—not simply by avoiding Europe’s errors, however by setting a nationwide normal for the best way to do AI regulation proper: centered, restricted, and innovation-first.
Different states, like New York, are nonetheless caught combating yesterday’s fears. Texas is poised to construct tomorrow’s breakthroughs—if lawmakers end the job within the Senate.
