Jeffries to meet with new House Dem AI commission

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will hold his inaugural meeting with a new House Democratic commission on AI this week — a sign that Democrats are getting ready to ramp up their work on AI policy issues ahead of the midterms.

It’s not immediately clear which members will be attending the session, but the newly formed House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy is being led by Reps. Ted Lieu of California, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Valerie Foushee of North Carolina.

Lieu, who is also the vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in an interview Tuesday that the meeting is taking place this week. According to one person familiar with the plans, granted anonymity to share private details, the meeting is likely to occur Thursday, schedule permitting.

The creation of the commission, which was formed in December, highlights how House Democrats see urgency in developing a more comprehensive party platform on the new technology as Republican-led efforts to enact a federal preemption that would effectively block states from setting their own AI regulations have been repeatedly shot down.

Major companies with stakes in AI, from OpenAI, Anthropic and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, have also been rapidly building out presences on K Street and pouring millions into new lobbying operations.

Senior Republican lawmakers, notably House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz of Texas, pushed to include a federal preemption on state AI regulations in a defense authorization bill after it got cut from the GOP’s party-line megabill over the summer. The provision has so far failed to receive buy-in from Democrats and was criticized by prominent Republicans like Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Josh Hawley of Missouri.

The White House subsequently put out an executive order establishing a new AI Litigation Task Force to challenge state AI laws, a move critics say could stifle innovation. The order also directed top administration officials to draft a recommendation for a federal legislative framework to replace the patchwork of state laws. Democrats and Republicans both want a seat at the table for establishing such a framework.

“The executive order asks us in Congress to get our act together and to help them on the preemption piece,” said Rep. Jay Obernolte, who co-chairs the bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence with Lieu, in an interview Wednesday.

“I think this is a bipartisan issue. We all agree that there is a federal lane and a state lane for regulation. We all agree that the federal government needs to go first with defining what those lanes are.”

A spokesperson for Jeffries did not immediately respond to a request for comment.