What Is This Bipartisan Data Center Bill Really About?

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Inside Washington

What is this bipartisan data center bill really about?

On Tuesday, Congress will consider the Ratepayer Protection Act, a bipartisan bill that aims to make data centers responsible for their costs to the energy grid. The premise sounds good—but some critics say all it would really do is give cover to vulnerable incumbents in an election season dominated by concerns about affordability and AI data centers.

The bill, introduced by Democratic Representative Kathy Castor of Florida and Republican Representative Gabe Evans of Colorado, tells states to consider adopting a federal standard that ensures data centers cover the costs of their grid updates. The key word there is “consider.” Under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, state-level utility commissions set their own rates. Congress can only tell these commissions to consider changes, but can’t actually force those changes itself. The bill is the legislative counterpart to President Trump’s “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” a voluntary and nonbinding pledge that the White House said nearly 200 utilities and AI companies signed in March. Both the bill and the pledge tell AI companies to shoulder the cost of data centers, but neither has an enforcement mechanism to make that happen.

“It doesn’t really have much in the way of teeth,” said David Pomerantz, the executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute. Both Pomerantz and Grayson Flood, a senior fellow at Groundwork Collaborative, said that the bill’s toothlessness doesn’t mean it’s bad—just that it doesn’t actively change much. “It should be something that folks support,” Flood said. “Where I would push back is if it starts to be framed as: Well, we’ve done the thing and now we don’t need to do any more.”

Some view the legislation more harshly. Mitch Jones, the managing director of policy and litigation at Food and Water Watch, said that his organization is opposed to the bill because it acts as a “fig leaf” for Big Tech companies and members of Congress to hide behind without meaningfully addressing high utility costs from data centers.

“This legislation is clearly meant to give members of Congress cover, especially during an election year, when the issue of data centers and the issue of AI more broadly have really come to the fore as one of the top issues animating politics in the United States currently,” Jones said.

Polls suggest voters overwhelmingly hate data centers, and a number of this bill’s co-sponsors are facing tough elections this November. Notably, GOP Representatives David Valadao of California, Jen Kiggans of Virginia, Mónica de la Cruz of Texas, and Bill Huizenga and Tom Barrett of Michigan have signed on to the bill since September 1. All are facing strong Democratic challengers in their elections. Barrett is facing Will Lawrence in Michigan’s 7th congressional district; Lawrence has made data centers a central part of his campaign, and has criticized Barrett on data centers and AI specifically.

Instead of this bill, Jones said, Congress should pass the moratorium on data center construction introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in March. Flood, for his part, wants to see Congress levy taxes on data center tenants based on their electricity usage—something Congress actually does have the authority to do. “That creates a floor that every data center has to pay, regardless of what state it’s in,” he said. That “makes it harder for these tech companies to do what you would call regulatory arbitrage,” playing states off of each other to secure the best deals possible.

The experts who spoke to The New Republic emphasized that states are already tackling this issue themselves, and don’t need Congress to tell them it’s important—in recent months, governors including Kathy Hochul in New York and Greg Abbott in Texas have called for pauses to new data center construction, and other states are considering plans to address the issue. “There’s nothing inherently wrong” about Congress making a “political statement” about data center costs, Pomerantz said. But ultimately, Flood noted, “This is the bare minimum.”

—Emma Janssen

Outside Washington

In barely 24 hours after Republican Texas Railroad Commissioner candidate Bo French posted a bizarre, racist comment on X, several Republicans denounced him—and 500 new donors flocked to Democratic candidate Jon Rosenthal, The Texas Tribune reported on Monday. The original social media post on Sunday featured a picture of numerous nonwhite students cheering the Texas Longhorns’ big comeback win over Ohio State Saturday, with French commenting: “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” Wrote the Tribune’s Carlos Nogueras Ramos: “French, who has scarcely debated the issues the Railroad Commission regulates since launching his campaign last November, vigorously defended his remarks. He said UT-Austin and other institutions have prioritized foreign students and workers, which, without evidence, he said has resulted in fraud.” Last year, Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick called for French’s resignation as Tarrant County party chair after French posted a poll asking whether Jews or Muslims posed a bigger threat to the United States.

For those curious about the outsize influence that the three-member Texas Railroad Commission has over the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, check out Kate Aronoff’s explanation from the 2020 election season.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

On Tuesday, Arizona State University and New America host their 12th Annual Future Security Forum “in collaboration” with the Global SOF Foundation, Security & Defense PLuS, the McCain Institute, and Small Wars Journal. The forum, focused on “America’s Post-9/11 Wars,” will feature among its many speakers Vermont Democratic Senator Peter Welch, Colorado Democratic Representative Jason Crow, General Joseph L. Votel, and reporters Azmat Khan, former New America head Steve Coll, Jason Burke, and Joby Warrick.

Wednesday at noon, the Center for American Progress hosts an in-person and Zoom discussion with Senator Tim Kaine, Representative Jason Crow (busy guy this week!), and Representative Chrissy Houlahan about how to “reform” national security post-Trump. The Brookings Institution’s Damian Murphy and Allison McManus will moderate, with opening remarks delivered by Dan Herman.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Political Trivia Question of the Day

Clarence Thomas is probably the most conservative Supreme Court justice in modern U.S. history. Which two men, who both sat in the mid-to-late twentieth century, are generally considered the most liberal justices in the court’s history? (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)

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Inside Washington

Dems want to regulate AI. But will AI money divide them?

Democrats are loudly demanding new artificial intelligence regulation after an Anthropic researcher publicly announced his resignation this week with a social media post saying his colleagues believe AI “could kill us all by the end of the decade.” On Thursday, another Anthropic news item threw fuel on the fire: The company announced that it had discovered and thwarted a “series” of attempts by “suspected state-sponsored groups, financially motivated criminals, and politically motivated individuals” to use its AI models to develop biological weapons.

Now, as some Dems call for immediate action, the question isn’t just whether the party will hold the power to do something in January—it’s also whether the new Congress could be hampered by the role of pro-AI money in politics.

The biggest player in the AI PAC world is Leading the Future, which is funded by OpenAI president Greg Brockman, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of Palantir.

The other major AI PAC is Public First Action, which was founded by former Democratic Representative Brad Carson and former Republican Representative Chris Stewart to act as a counterweight to Leading the Future. Anthropic is a major funder of the group, and donated $40 million to it this year. “This is too important a conversation to let a few billionaires decide the future of AI in our country and put profits over people,” Anthony Rivera-Rodriguez, a spokesperson for Public First Action, told The New Republic. “We exist to advocate for public safeguards in this debate.”

Other tech sectors, notably the cryptocurrency industry, pour money into politics as well. There’s some overlap between the interests of pro-AI and pro-cryto PACs like Fairshake.

While both groups are funded by the AI industry, campaign finance reform advocates say there are crucial differences. “If I had my druthers, none of these PACs would exist,” said Colin McGlynn, the AI policy adviser at Demand Progress Action. “But given that we’re stuck with the Supreme Court we have for now, that we’re not going to get that kind of money out of politics, I definitely prefer that there be some money on the side of being ready to regulate AI,” he said, referring to Public First Action’s stated goal to support AI regulation.

So far, Leading the Future’s Democratic sub-PAC, called Think Big, has intervened in 15 Democratic primaries, according to Federal Elections Commission filings and the watchdog group Guardrails Action. The candidates they’ve supported include: Ritchie Torres, Marilyn Strickland, Greg Stanton, Jimmy Panetta, Joseph Morelle, Robert Menendez, Jared Moskowitz, Dan Koh, Ben
McAdams, Jesse Jackson Jr., Valerie Hoyle, Yvette Clarke, Melissa Bean, and Jeremy Moss.

Notably, Think Big spent millions to oppose Alex Bores’s campaign for New York’s 12th congressional district. Bores authored New York’s RAISE Act, which requires frontier AI labs to publish information about their safety protocols and disclose any safety breaches. Jobs and Democracy PAC, an affiliate of Public First Action, jumped in to support Bores, but he ultimately lost his race.

Think Big has also offered endorsements (but not financial support) to Sam Liccardo, Josh Gottheimer, Jimmy Gomez, Tom Suozzi, Eric Sorensen, Joyce Beatty, Herb Conaway, Emilia Sykes, and Suhas Subramanyam.

Of those, a few names stand out: Gottheimer is a co-chair of the House Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy, a group launched by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries late last year. Meanwhile, Subramanyam is a co-sponsor of the FRONTIER Act.

Besides Bores, Public First Action and its Jobs and Democracy PAC has spent money on candidates like Colin Allred, Valerie Foushee, Brian Poindexter, Scott Weiner, and Bob Brooks. Alongside Representatives Greg Casar and Sara Jacobs, Foushee last month introduced a bill to prevent mass unemployment due to AI.

In sharp contrast to Leading the Future, Public First Action explicitly supports state and local AI legislation, and says on its website that it “opposes federal efforts to freeze state progress without adequate federal safeguards.” That could put the group at odds with the FRONTIER Act, which critics say preempts states’ abilities to regulate AI.

Though the groups have spent massive sums of money in the 2026 midterms, experts say they think the power of AI interests could decrease soon. Polling shows that Americans are desperate for AI regulation; 65 percent of Americans surveyed earlier this year said the government had done “too little” to regulate AI. Anger over data centers and AI has become a talking point in races across the country.

“I absolutely think that the anger about data centers and other AI overreach is going to be part of what powers the next generation of reform on money in politics,” said Abigail Bellows, the senior policy director for anti-corruption and accountability at Common Cause.

McGlynn agrees that Leading the Future is in a weaker position than they were at the beginning of 2026. “They started out with the crypto strategy of spend big and early to scare people into line,” he said, referring to the strategy of crypto PACs like Fairshake in 2024 and 2026. But now that voters are animated by data centers and AI, “they’re kind of on the back foot now, and we’ve seen them basically stop spending recently. I think they’re trying to come up with new strategies.”

Some lawmakers are already taking action, suggesting the formation of a select committee on artificial intelligence and, in the case of Senator Bernie Sanders, holding briefings on the dangers of AI. It remains to be seen what strategies the AI industry might take come January to influence any legislation the new Congress might consider.

—Emma Janssen

Outside Washington

The anti-Flock backlash continues. In Ohio, Democratic state lawmakers Tristan Rader and Darnell Brewer and Republicans Levi Dean
and Justin Pizzulli recently penned a letter to “request that the Ohio Department of Transportation stop permitting automated license plate readers in state highway rights-of-way and review the permits already issued,” the Ohio Capital Journal reported Thursday. Recent reports of law enforcement abusing the technology, and general concerns about surveillance, have turned Flock cameras into “a hot topic on the Ohio campaign trail,” writes Nick Evans. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, the paper notes, “initially praised the cameras’ role in solving crimes” but now has said she supports a full ban on the cameras. Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has been a bit cagier, and apparently did not respond to the paper’s request for clarification on his position.

In case you missed it: ProPublica’s Andrea Suozzo and Agnel Philip this week find in a striking new report that deaths from ectopic pregnancy doubled in the period from 2020 to 2025 as compared to the prior six years—and that “while the uptick in ectopic deaths occurred nationwide, the climb has been much steeper in states that banned abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.” Troublingly, they note, “the mounting deaths in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data have drawn little scrutiny or response”: The reporters contacted “more than a dozen maternal health experts, including leaders in the field, who were unaware of the spike.”

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

At the centrist Progressive Policy Institute, Richard D. Kahlenberg and Lief Lin pen a new report on “Teaching American Democracy,” probing “where civics [education] went wrong” and how to “revitalize” it. One of the recommendations: “All states should require three years of American Democracy, just as they typically require three years in math and reading. Helping all students understand who we are as Americans and why,” Kahlenberg and Lin write, “is of enormous importance in a country where liberal democratic norms are under steady attack—as important as literacy and numeracy.”

Next Tuesday at 10 a.m., the Brookings Institution will host an event exploring “whether industry, community, and government can ever get closer to agreement on data centers.” Participants include Representative Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia, NAACP director of the Center for Environmental and Climate Justice Abre’ Conner, Elena Schlossberg of the Coalition to Protect Prince William County, Groundswell CEO Michelle Moore, and Tuckahoe Creek Strategies founder Marie Sylla-Dixon. Brookings Center for Technology Innovation director Nicol Turner Lee will moderate.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Good Week/Bad Week

Good Week: The Washington Sun

Like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, the media operation formerly known as NOTUS has morphed into its final form as The Washington Sun. The outlet has made a strong showing in recent years, publishing keenly written stories, hoovering up local journalistic talent, and filling the yawning gap left by The Washington Post as it pivoted from news to cut-rate right-wing opinion goulash and unwatchable podcasts hosted by dweebs.

Bad Week: Hey, maybe everyone, who knows?

Was Jacob Coxon’s announcement that Anthropic’s AI models were destined to wipe out humanity within a decade a genuine cry for help, or a personal-branding stunt, or a marketing gimmick? It’s impossible to say. Still, not great to have a trillion-dollar industry barreling into a future it doesn’t understand and cannot explain that’s this good at keeping us awake at night.

—Jason Linkins

Political Trivia Question of the Day

On this opening week of the NFL season: A number of former NFL players have gone on to careers in politics. Mostly, they’re Republican, but there have been at least two recent Democrats. Name one. (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in Tuesday’s newsletter.)

—Michael Tomasky

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Inside Washington

The crucial Senate race Dems are forgetting about

New Hampshire isn’t on most Democrats’ list of competitive Senate races, but maybe it should be. Recent polling finds the contest between Democrat Chris Pappas and Republican John Sununu, who were officially confirmed as their parties’ candidates after winning Tuesday’s primary, within the margin of error. The race is one “Democrats can’t afford to toss aside,” Representative Pappas, who currently represents New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district, warned in late August. “If we can’t hold the Senate seat, then the math just doesn’t work in other states.”

Many Democrats have assumed that the New Hampshire Senate race is in the bag for Pappas, who is running to replace departing Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen. The state’s congressional delegation is entirely Democratic, and President Trump’s approval rating has been falling in the state. Plus, Democrats have their work cut out for them in states like Michigan, Ohio, and Maine, and resources are finite.

But political experts in the state say that Pappas’s race appears competitive. Polls throughout the summer typically showed Pappas narrowly ahead of his opponent, former Representative and Senator John Sununu, but a late August poll showed Sununu up by two points. Inside Elections shifted the race from “Tilt Democratic” to “Toss-up” on September 3. The Cook Political Report rates the race “Lean D.”

“I don’t think this is going to be easy” for Democrats, said Wayne Lesperance, a professor of political science and the president of New England College. “The Republicans have chosen the best candidate they could.” He pointed to Sununu’s high name recognition from his time in office and his brother’s popularity as governor. Even though Sununu has Trump’s endorsement, he hasn’t mentioned it and has worked to distance himself from the unpopular president. “For a lot of voters, they see [Sununu] as sort of a throwback in a good way,” explained Christopher Galdieri, a professor of political science at Saint Anselm College. “He is really hammering hard in his advertising that he’s from back when Congress worked and politics wasn’t so loud and nasty.”

Pappas has some significant advantages, though. The unpopularity of Trump’s policies is a clear one—like Maine, New Hampshire has been hit hard by the tariff war with Canada and a decrease in Canadian tourism. “Anything that becomes a barrier to trade hurts the Granite State,” Lesperance said. The impact of tariffs “magnifies the challenges around affordability,” an issue that Democrats have been hammering nationwide this year. On Wednesday, the Pappas campaign released a list of the times Sununu has supported Trump’s agenda, trying to tie him to the president.

Pappas can also likely draw in New Hampshire’s undeclared voters, who make up about 40 percent of the electorate. These voters tend to mirror the state’s fiscally conservative and socially liberal values, explained Linda Fowler, a professor of government at Dartmouth College. “The Republicans in Washington have not performed as the independent voters would like. In fact, they’ve been emphasizing social issues on the conservative side, and being very irresponsible fiscally.”

Pappas has won his elections in the swingy 1st congressional district since 2018, showing that he can appeal to these undeclared voters. Now Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of the retiring senator, is running for that seat. In the state’s only other congressional district, incumbent Representative Maggie Goodlander will face a rematch with Republican Lily Tang Williams.

Pappas may also benefit from national Democratic figures eager to campaign with him in New Hampshire ahead of 2028. Rumored presidential contenders Senator Mark Kelly and Representative Ro Khanna have spent time in the state in recent weeks. Pete Buttigieg campaigned with Pappas in February and will return in early October for a state Democratic Party fundraiser.

In addition to the tariff issue, housing affordability is a major concern in New Hampshire, and one that has been relatively underemphasized so far in the Senate race. The professors who spoke to The New Republic on Wednesday said that they’re looking for either of the candidates to come up with convincing solutions to the state’s high property taxes and low housing stock.

Democratic groups like WinSenate, which is affiliated with the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer–aligned Senate Majority PAC, said it plans to spend over $10 million on television ads for the race. The Senate GOP-aligned PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, has pledged to spend $17 million on the race, and Elon Musk’s America PAC is jumping in to boost conservative candidates in the state.

The risk that Pappas could be wildly outspent by Republicans and their allies is part of why his campaign and outside observers are getting nervous. “I think the good news for Pappas is that people are having these discussions now, at the beginning of September and not October 25,” said Galdieri. “Which means there’s time.”

—Emma Janssen

Outside Washington

Wondering how Trump’s ongoing trade wars could affect the midterm elections? Stateline’s Kevin Hardy has a useful overview of the potential effects in the Midwest and several New England states. Ohio comes in for particular attention. “Canada is Ohio’s biggest export market, sending $17.5 billion in goods across the border,” writes Hardy, and “Canadian data show countermeasures will hit Ohio harder than any other state.” It’s not hard to imagine that this will be a factor in the Senate face-off between Republican Jon Husted and Democrat Sherrod Brown. (Recent polling mostly shows Brown with a single-digit lead.)

Republican Brandon Herrera, running in Texas’s 23rd congressional district, is brushing off concerns about an array of offensive comments he reportedly made about women, fat people, and homeless people, saying they were “jokes.” He also responded to criticism of his disparaging remarks about feminists by pointing to Democratic opponent Katy Padilla Stout’s work on one case where, according to The Guardian, she “was appointed as a defense attorney for a father seeking to restore parental rights after a domestic abuse allegation.” There has not been much polling on this race.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

Inside Washington

Friday at 1 p.m., the Brookings Institution hosts an in-person and online event on “The 9/11 terrorist attacks at 25: Assessing the legacy, addressing the future.” Maryland Governor Wes Moore will deliver a keynote. Other speakers include American University professor Tricia Bacon and numerous Brookings fellows and directors, including Jeffrey Feltman, Fonteh Akum, Vanda Felbab-Brown, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Ben Harris, Robert Kagan, William A. Galston, Marla Karlin, Suzanne Maloney, and Melanie W. Sisson. New York Times national security correspondent Eric Schmitt will also join as a moderator.

At the Center for American Progress, Ben Hovland offers “5 Quick Steps to Protect Your Right to Vote.” These include checking your registration but also, crucially, voting “as soon as you are ready. Early in-person voting and other options add resilience to the election process. If something unexpected comes up, whether that is with your voter record or simply because life gets busy, voting early gives you more time and options.”

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Here’s Why That’s B.S.

Watch TNR’s Edie Olmsted tackle Trump’s bizarre new story that firemen carried him out of danger at Ground Zero shortly after the attacks on the Twin Towers.

Political Trivia Question of the Day

On this day before September 11: Before 9/11 became 9/11, remembered for the horrific events it’s remembered for, Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was what day in New York City? (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in Tuesday’s newsletter.)

You’re reading The TNR Blue Book. Get daily scoops, strategy, and developments inside the liberal ideas factory delivered right to your inbox. Sign up for free.

Inside Washington

This could be the biggest issue of 2027. Dems are split on it.

Representative Lori Trahan has been positioning herself as a leader on artificial intelligence policy—so much so that she passed up a chance at a leadership role to instead focus on AI policy, she told Politico in an interview published Tuesday. Polls show voters’ concern over artificial intelligence is rising rapidly, whether it’s because of cybersecurity risks, data centers, or job loss. But it’s not yet clear which Democrats—and which proposals—might lead the way in a Democratic-led House come January.

Trahan’s legislation, the FRONTIER Act, is co-written with GOP Representative Jay Obernolte, and would give the government the authority to pause the deployment of risky AI models. Advocates for the bill say that it introduces safety guardrails while remaining flexible and without stifling innovation.But Trahan’s bill is one of a number of proposals Democrats have floated in recent months. And it’s not clear that hers is the one the party would support. In fact, some experts are concerned that Trahan’s bill might do more harm than good due to its preemption of state-level AI legislation, where the federal legislation would block states from making their own policies that go further. “The irony of the FRONTIER Act is that it draws inspiration from the California and New York AI laws,” said Amos Toh, a senior counsel and manager at the Brennan Center, referencing legislation passed by the two states that requires frontier AI labs to establish a framework for risk management and report safety breaches to the state. The New York bill, the RAISE Act, was championed by state Representative Alex

Bores, who lost his primary for Congress after AI-affiliated PACs spent millions against him.”Because of the political paralysis in Congress, [states] are the ones that are leading the thinking and development of what AI regulation should look like,” Toh added. Preempting state regulation “should give us all pause.” Jeff

Hauser, the founder and executive director of the Revolving Door Project, agrees with Toh’s concerns. He said it’s a matter of “legislative humility,” arguing that preemption assumes the federal approach is more correct than what states could legislate, a dangerous assumption given how fast the AI industry is changing.

Trahan and Obernolte addressed the preemption issue in late July, editing the original draft of the bill to decrease—but not fully eliminate—what the bill preempts. The latest version of the legislation would still preempt states on mandatory incident reporting and third-party audits of AI labs. “The FRONTIER Act does not ban states from regulating artificial intelligence. In fact, it expressly preserves state authority to protect kids online, and to enforce the civil rights, consumer protection, and privacy laws that govern how AI is developed, deployed, and used,” Trahan wrote in a newsletter sent to constituents.Trahan is not the only Democratic lawmaker who has been positioning herself as a leader on AI. In July, Representative Ted Lieu also unveiled a bipartisan proposal, the AI Kill Switch Act, which would require AI labs to report security incidents and create a mechanism to shut down their most powerful models. Lieu is a member of the recently created House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy, alongside Representatives Valerie Foushee, Josh Gottheimer, Frank Pallone Jr., and Zoe Lofgren. Henry Burke, a researcher at the Revolving Door Project, criticized those appointments, arguing that the commission’s members are too entangled with Big Tech.

Representative Greg Casar has also unveiled a series of bills related to AI this year, including a plan to protect workers from AI-related job loss and a proposal to ban artificial superintelligence in partnership with Senator Bernie Sanders.

Lieu sees room for collaboration with other pieces of legislation: “We need to look at both predeployment and postdeployment issues with AI, but the Kill Switch bill focuses on models that go rogue after they have already been built,” he said in a statement to The New Republic. “The bill would be complementary to any bills that address the testing and vetting of AI models that have not yet been deployed.”

Trahan doesn’t care for some of these competing proposals. “A permanent ban with no path to passage, that doesn’t protect anyone,” Trahan told Politico about Casar and Sanders’s legislation. Outright bans, she said, could “trigger a backlash that chokes off the chance to put sensible, durable guardrails in place for the future.”

Hauser disagrees with that reasoning. The AI industry “was way more politically powerful a year ago than they are now,” he told The New Republic. “They are right now a millstone around the necks of their top advocates, and people are scrambling to switch positions on AI,” he added, pointing to recent 180s on AI from Governors Josh Shapiro and Greg Abbott.

“What’s been concerning to me about Lori Trahan is how well she fits into the ‘in order to do X, we have to sacrifice on Y’ school, which I think is just what the AI oligarchs want,” Hauser said. He explained his concern that some lawmakers make “false choices,” for example only focusing on narrow AI safety issues, leaving open space for AI companies to harm the economy or build more data centers.

One way or another, Democrats will need a strategy on AI regulation—particularly if they win big in the November midterms. But the bills are only one piece of that. Toh said he’s also keeping an eye on what kinds of hearings and investigations Democrats conduct on AI-related cybersecurity breaches, like the recent OpenAI and Hugging Face incident. “I think it’s very much about setting the tone for the next Congress,” he said. “I think an early marker of that will really be whether they are conducting proper, rigorous, and independent investigations and hearings into how AI developers and their trusted partners got us into this situation.”

—Emma Janssen

Outside Washington

As Trump and MAGA-world head into their all-hands-on-deck attempt to save Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, Democrat James Talarico continues to trot out endorsements from the people Paxton has pissed off over the years. Amid a $10 million ad buy from the MAGA Inc. super PAC and GOP preparations for an unprecedented midterm “convention” in Dallas featuring both the president and vice president, the Talarico team on Tuesday dropped a new ad featuring David Maxwell, the director of law enforcement for the attorney general’s office during Paxton’s tenure as attorney general. Maxwell was one of the people who were fired by Paxton’s office after they reported Paxton to the FBI for misusing his position to help a donor friend. In the ad that dropped Tuesday, Maxwell says Talarico “knows a bad guy when he sees one.” And just for good measure, in a statement reported by The Texas Tribune, Maxwell calls Paxton a “crook.”

This ad comes on the heels of a similar one. Last month, Joe Joplin, the attorney whose $1,000 Montblanc pen Paxton (allegedly, but on video) stole in 2012, endorsed Talarico. The campaign ran a “Vote for James Talarico. He won’t steal your pen” ad around it, and added a black pen with white lettering reading “Not Ken Paxton’s Pen” to its campaign merch.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

Thursday at 1 p.m., the Roosevelt Institute hosts a Zoom conversation “about the future of Social Security revenue” with the organization’s “Good Life Residents” Tyler Bond, Jon Schwabish, and Lena Simet. The panel will discuss closing various tax loopholes and “how future revenue reform can preserve Social Security’s core guarantees, reject benefit cuts, and create room to strengthen and expand the program as a durable system of progressive social insurance.”

Thursday at 11 a.m., the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
hosts a live event about the “lessons learned and unlearned” in the 25 years since the September 11 attacks. Carnegie senior fellow Aaron David Miller will speak with Brookings scholar Philip Gordon, the McCain Institute’s Nicholas Rasmussen, and Susan B. Glasser of The New Yorker.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Book of the Week

THE GIST: This is the biography of lawyer and conservative activist Roy Cohn that this country has been waiting decades for. “Before Roy Cohn, America had a bipartisan establishment that adjudicated the rough edges of the country’s raucous democracy,” Bird, the preeminent biographer of said establishment, writes with the help of his longtime researcher (and wife) Susan Goldmark. “Cohn used his entire career to subvert the establishment, breaking all the rules and creating a divisive, highly partisan political culture that has reinforced the legacy of Senator Joe McCarthy.”

PRAISE: New York Times critic Jennifer Szalai highlights the significance of the book’s title, which mirrors Bird’s more famous biography of Robert Oppenheimer (American Prometheus), which was adapted by Christopher Nolan for the big screen. “When Oppenheimer witnessed the first detonation of a nuclear bomb,” Szalai writes, “he was reminded of a line from the Bhagavad-Gita: ‘Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.’ He was horrified by the new reality that he had helped bring into being…. A Prometheus steals fire for humanity; a scoundrel takes everyone for a ride.”

CRUISING THE INDEX: The best and most revelatory parts of this book are hardly surprising—they detail Cohn’s relationship with his (sort of) mentor Joseph McCarthy and his protégé Donald Trump. But American Scoundrel is also a fine book about New York high society, albeit somewhat on the margins—the sections on upscale Jewish life in the 1920s and 1930s and Cohn’s glitzy, seedy social life in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s are particularly interesting. And while this is a book about many of the worst people in American life in the second half of the twentieth century—Trump, McCarthy, Roger Stone, and, of course, Cohn himself—there are plenty of other cameos. Cohn’s social circle also included Barbara Walters, Walter Winchell, George Steinbrenner, and William F. Buckley Jr.

TNR’S QUICK CRITICAL ASSESSMENT: There have been great fictional portrayals of Cohn. (Al Pacino in Angels in America, and Jeremy Strong, who contributed research materials to American Scoundrel, come to mind.) But a full-scale biography like this has been desperately needed. Bird has produced it. American Scoundrel isn’t just a book about Cohn and the twentieth century—it’s a book about how he shaped the twenty-first century, too. We are still living in his world, now perhaps more than ever.

—Alex Shephard

Political Trivia Question of the Day

With New Hampshire in the news: Back when the state’s first-in-the-nation primary was important, one Democratic front-runner was laid low there when he responded emotionally to a false charge against him—who was the candidate, and what was the year? (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in Tuesday’s newsletter.)

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Inside Washington

President Donald Trump’s efforts to restrict mail-in voting have grabbed news headlines in recent days, as the Postal Service builds an involved screening system that would require states to submit voter information before sending out absentee ballots. But one potential consequence has not received the same level of attention: the implications for Indigenous voters across the country. In addition to throwing up more roadblocks for a population that has historically faced significant obstacles to voting, these moves by the USPS could have an impact in key elections in states such as Alaska and Arizona. 

Tribal voters living at remote addresses on reservations may need to travel for hours to reach their nearest polling place, meaning that absentee voting is the best method for having their voices heard. “Often, vote by mail is the only option that is made available to Native communities. And so, when you disrupt that process or start creating lists that are imperfect and keep people off [of voting rolls], then Native voters are going to be inevitably cut out and disenfranchised,” said Jacqueline De León, a senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund. 

A federal whistleblower has alleged that the development and deployment of the USPS system has been rushed and haphazard, and could result in voter disenfranchisement ahead of the general election. Despite a court order barring the Postal Service from continuing to develop the portal, the agency said this week that it is moving forward with its plans.

Native voters already face difficulties in having their vote counted. Some states with photo ID requirements for voting do not accept tribal identification. Because many Native Americans living on tribal lands do not have traditional addresses, they may need to pay for a P.O. box if they want to receive any kind of mail—including absentee ballots. The new policy would present yet another barrier.

“I know tons of Native people who all have their mail delivered to one family member’s house because it’s the only house that USPS reliably can find. These are things that could easily trigger false red flags in a system that’s not carefully designed around the realities of Native voters,” Elizabeth Reese, an associate professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in tribal law, told The New Republic in an email.

The lack of traditional addresses also presents challenges to registering to vote and staying on voter rolls. A new report by the Native American Rights Fund, or NARF, and Blackwell Consulting found that rejections of voter registration applications via mail and the Department of Motor Vehicles spiked dramatically in counties where Native Americans account for at least 25 percent of the population between 2020 and 2024. The report analyzed data from the 2020, 2022, and 2024 elections.

“Native voters do not receive equitable services, and often receive inadequate services, which result in Native voters having to navigate really unreasonable barriers in order to cast a ballot,” said De León. “I think that it would shock the conscience of the everyday American if they knew how difficult it can be to vote in Indian country.”

Native voters may be particularly susceptible to being purged from the rolls because notices sent by election officials to confirm voter information go unanswered, and that in turn could be because the mail is undeliverable.

When voters are removed from the rolls—sometimes without their knowledge—they can submit provisional ballots, but these can also end up being rejected. Provisional ballot voting more than doubled between 2020 and 2024 in counties with a significant Native population, according to the NARF report, but the provisional ballot rejection rate in counties with significant Native populations is higher than the national rate. The rate of rejection for mail-in ballots also increased in these counties between 2020 and 2024, even as the actual number of mail-in ballots cast declined.

These challenges may have significant repercussions for critical swing elections this year, which could determine control of Congress and of governors’ mansions across the country. Alaska has a large Native population, a significant portion of whom live in rural areas that may not reliably receive mail—a factor that could affect the outcome of the competitive Senate race between Democrat Mary Peltola and Republican incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan. Reese said she was “particularly worried” about how the screening system being built by USPS could potentially affect that race.

“This is the state with the highest percentage of Native voters, the most significant challenges for in-person voter access, and that happens to be one of the races that could determine control of the Senate,” said Reese.

Native voters could also have an impact in the close gubernatorial race in Arizona, where Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs is fighting to stay in office. 

Native Americans have faced deliberate hurdles to make voting more difficult for them since they were granted the right to vote in 1924. This election is making both the stakes and the complexities of voting access especially clear. “Native voters hold a tremendous amount of political power,” De León said. But they also “have to expend more time and resources to exercise their fundamental right to vote.” In close contests, that vote may be a determining factor in which candidate wins the race.

—Grace Segers

Outside Washington

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel finds that ICE arrests spiked dramatically in Wisconsin over the summer. “ICE detained and arrested more than 250 people in Wisconsin in June alone, an 82 percent increase compared to the previous month. Immigration arrests slowed but remained elevated in July,” reports Eva Wen. (For more on how ICE seems to have adapted post-Minneapolis, hitting new records without making as many headlines, read Melissa Gira Grant’s analysis from July.)

Colorado Public Radio profiles Democrat Eileen Laubacher, a retired Navy rear admiral who’s challenging Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s 4th congressional district. “There are more than twice as many registered Republicans as there are Democrats in the district, although almost half of the registered voters are unaffiliated,” reports Caitlyn Kim. “The last time the district elected a Democrat was in 2008, when Democrat Barack Obama was at the top of the ticket.” But despite that, some people are letting themselves feel just a wee bit optimistic about Dem chances of flipping the seat: Laubacher has far out-raised Boebert, and Trump is very unpopular.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

Data for Progress finds that voters “strongly disapprove of Trump’s handling of Israel-Palestine conflicts” and that this disapproval has grown over the course of the year: “In January, voters were roughly split in their assessment of Trump’s handling of the conflict, with 42 percent approving and 44 percent disapproving—a −2-point margin. Today, only 33 percent of voters approve of Trump’s handling of this issue, while 56 percent disapprove—a −23-point margin.”

At the Brennan Center, Derek Tisler, Edgardo Cortés, and Elizabeth Howard have put together a guide to how official election results are tallied. “Each of these steps has safeguards in place to protect the rights of voters and the integrity of our elections,” they emphasize. “They are conducted in public; representatives from both parties, citizens, and the media can observe that they are done properly. At each step, voters, candidates, and other interested parties can go to court to enforce these safeguards if needed.” They take readers through the steps of receiving and processing ballots, tabulating, election-night reporting of unofficial results, provisional ballots, curing, and more. A useful resource as the November elections (and concerns about the process) draw closer.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Good week: Mary Peltola

The Democratic candidate for Senate in Alaska keeps getting encouraging signs in a very tough red-leaning state. The latest vote tally of the state’s nonpartisan primary now shows her and the other Democratic finisher totaling over 50 percent, a key metric. The news came as the other Democrat, David Leslie, withdrew this week, enabling Peltola to consolidate the Democratic vote. Indeed, one forecaster now rates Peltola “narrowly favored.” Though a lot can still go wrong, there’s now a pretty clear path.

Bad week: Scott Bessent

The treasury secretary has had a string of unsightly public pratfalls. This week, reporters grilled the Trump administration on Bessent’s July prediction that gas prices would drop to $3 per gallon by Labor Day, which hasn’t exactly panned out. Bessent also engaged in heavy-handed ridicule of Canada’s supposed weakness, which looks particularly tone-deaf amid mounting GOP angst about his and Trump’s dim-witted trade war with our northern ally. And Bessent endured harsh mockery over his sneering claim that Ukraine’s defense of itself against Russian aggression is to blame for high energy prices. In sum, Bessent is now the front man in defending some of Trump’s most buffoonish and destructive failures, and as he’s finding out the hard way, they’re, well, indefensible.

Political Trivia Question of the Day  

Name the union each of these labor leaders helped found or famously led for many years: Bill Haywood; John L. Lewis; A. Philip Randolph; Dolores Huerta; Walter Reuther; William Winpisinger. (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in Tuesday’s newsletter.)