Congress has spent much of the last year debating whether and how to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) as the technology rapidly grows in ability and scope – but with Republicans in control of Washington, most of those discussions have not involved much Democratic input.
House Democrats are now attempting to change that with their “House Commission on Artificial Intelligence and the Innovation Economy,” a new panel announced this morning by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Among the commission’s three co-chairs: New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly).
The mission of the Democrat-only commission, Gottheimer said, will be to help shape the party’s AI legislative agenda, educate other House Democrats on AI’s benefits and drawbacks, and meet with both AI industry representatives and those from other fields.
“As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, and the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on the National Security Agency and Cyber, I see every day just how quickly the landscape is shifting,” Gottheimer said in a statement. “That’s why this new Commission on AI is critical. We need to ensure Congress is educated on these new technologies, that we’re putting the right policies, legislation, and guardrails in place to grow and protect Americans, and that the U.S. continues to be the leader in AI-fueled jobs and innovation.”
Gottheimer will be joined by California Rep. Ted Lieu and North Carolina Rep. Valerie Foushee atop the committee; one of its ex officio co-chairs, meanwhile, will be New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Every House Democrat is “invited to participate” in the commission.
The new commission’s arrival comes at a precarious time for AI regulation. President Donald Trump said yesterday that he’ll sign an executive order preventing state governments from implementing their own AI regulations, a controversial policy that the Trump administration argues will create a more consistent playing field for AI companies. A similar policy had been included in negotiations over both the One Big Beautiful Bill over the summer and the National Defense Authorization Act this fall, but it was scrapped in both cases following bipartisan blowback.
Congress had more success with a different, far less controversial AI bill: in May, Trump signed the Take It Down Act, a bipartisan bill targeting AI-generated pornographic images (known as deepfakes) that was championed by Westfield teenager Francesca Mani after a deepfake scandal at her high school.
Jeffries and the new AI commission’s leaders said today that Democrats, too, should be positioned to craft AI policy – which could come to pass if Democrats retake the House or Senate majority in 2026.
“At this watershed moment in technological history, the people we are privileged to represent understandably have questions about how AI will affect their lives into the future,” Jeffries said. “House Democrats are ready, willing and able to lean into those issues so we can uplift the health, safety and economic well-being of the American people.”