I helped write, pass and protect the first laws that regulate artificial intelligence in the country. As part of Donald Trump’s tax bill, Republicans in Washington are now trying to overturn our Colorado laws and seize other similar efforts nationwide, as demand to regulate AI will only grow.
The Biden administration established the American Institute of Artificial Intelligence Security (AISI) in 2023 to identify potential major risks AI could pose. These federal guidelines have enabled tech companies to move towards adoption of regulations. Colorado understands Congress’ inaction model in 2024, working with lawmakers in more than 30 other states to try to pass new unified AI regulations.
In the last few days of the 2024 Colorado Legislative Conference, I scrambled to vote for it to be the first AI regulation in the country, the SB24-205 led by state Sen. Robert Rodriguez. We realize that in important aspects of everyday life, the increasing use of AI, often without consumers, such as healthcare, finance and criminal justice, should be a major concern because of its inherent bias potential.
AI systems learn from a wide range of datasets, and these datasets reflect existing social biases (whether in gender stereotypes, historical lending practices, or medical research), which AI not only replicates, but often amplifies them and can lead to discriminatory outcomes. This can lead to unfair refusal of loans, misdiagnosis, false arrests or limited opportunities for almost anyone.
Republicans’ “a massive bill” (their efforts to extend and expand Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the rich) have a dangerous rule to prevent states from enacting any AI regulations for 10 years. The measure will preempt our state law in Colorado and let the federal government deal with only regulating AI, which will not.
This should be a big concern for you, because the huge AI growth we’ve witnessed over the past few years will only multiply over the next decade.
As chairman of the Joint Technical Committee of the Colorado Convention, I know what would happen if Republicans included such a rule into the law. Big companies and tech brothers will get Uber Rich and we will be victims of their AI experiments.
It’s not easy to convince colleagues to show interest in weird, subtle topics like AI, especially when the legislative clock is exhausted, but after carefully negotiated amendments and support for Colorado AFL-CIO, we called enough votes to be the first and only country to pass new laws.
But state lawmakers are very aware that we must act because the Fed is notorious for doing nothing. Colorado’s bills and other legislative efforts simultaneously should create a unified policy that any country can adopt to avoid a terrible “patched together legislative laws” in lieu of federal policy.
After the bill passed in 2024, we formed a task force, prepared a report, held stakeholder meetings, and drafted legislation, especially the SB25-318 bill, to improve compliance, accountability and processes. We intend to create great laws that other countries can model. When the second Trump administration destroyed Biden’s AISI guide, the tech industry was no longer interested in cooperation. The "safety first" method is lost and the attitude of freedom is accepted.
From the third to the last day of the 2025 session, we are trying to advance a bill to improve AI laws, but it is clear that the tech industry intends to undermine our efforts.
Led by venture capitalists or VCS and their lobbyists, they have created panic in industries such as healthcare, education, and small businesses, calling on us to “do something about AI.” By “doing something,” they meant an additional year of expansion of the implementation of existing laws so that they had more time to comply. As an experienced legislator, I immediately view it as an obvious lobbying strategy, with more time to create a plan to prevent the law from being enacted.
As my legislative colleagues were shocked and convinced by the attacks of lobbying efforts, Senator Robert Rodriguez was unable to resist the change in the implementation deadline and he was forced to kill the bill. Dissatisfied that the technology industry is still looking for a way out of any regulations.
The next day, the seemingly smaller bill SB25-322 was debated on the calendar. Basically, this is the simple clause required for the attorney general in litigation. I was called several meetings with legislative leaders to discuss how to calm the created VC panic. They suggested that I become a "hero" by amending SB25-322 to try again to push our original laws on AI regulations.
I'm not a hero of a big company. I fight for the disadvantages of not having billions of dollars to manipulate the legislative process, workers and daily citizens. I said no to their proposal and proposed a two-month extension to give us time to try another bill in 2026. That was unacceptable, so I joined the war. I'm not going to have anyone attach an amendment, and if they do, I'll kill the bill.
The unwritten rules for the state legislature and the Senate are midnight deadlines. Stop every day at midnight. No one knows what would actually happen if we didn't finish work after 12 a.m. without anyone trying to find out. The penultimate day of the meeting embodies "If there is nothing in the last minute, there will be nothing to do." We finally arrived at SB25-322 at 10:40 pm. They called for a vote to limit the debate for an hour, which passed.
A representative quickly attached the amendment I vowed to fight. If I try my best, I still have to fill out the remaining 20 minutes to kill the bill. I blew for an entire hour and it's 11:40 pm. Over time, they successfully amended the bill and passed it. Most people don't know about our legislative debate work until we adopted our calming whole report committee, i.e. cow.
The cattle are designed to solve the error. It is often used evilly. I won't accept it easily, but it's my ultimate strategy for success. I want to use an amendment during filli column, and I want to say that the bill is not actually passed. To stop me, the majority leader moved to Rule 16, which is called the "problem". This means that everything about to collapse will be done without any debate. This will allow them to vote for all of this quickly, and 15 minutes will be enough. I feel hopeless. If Rule 16 passes, my efforts will be at a loss. Then, we voted and failed. Now, I was able to bring the amendment, extend the clock to midnight, and then kill the bill.
A few seconds before midnight, I was disturbed by the majority leader for my work on the day. The bill is dead. I saved the only AI law in the country from some demise. The Speaker was very angry. Confusing and exciting. In the days and weeks that followed, those who were concerned recalled the incident to legislative heroism.
Do I believe Congress will pass meaningful AI regulations? no. Lack of courage to support the right thing, especially when big money is involved. But this can be done. I know, because I did. Unfortunately, not all elected officials have the gut perseverance to make their party do the right thing. So, next time you hold an election, do your homework so that you can distinguish between a real civil servant and a selfish politician.