Press Release: READ: Gov. Evers Sends Letter to Wisconsin's Congressional Delegation Regarding New Federal Efforts to Undermine Wisconsin’s Artificial Intelligence Laws that Keep Kids and Families Safe

State of Wisconsin sent this bulletin at 04/15/2026 09:42 AM CDT
Office of Governor Tony Evers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 15, 2026
Contact: GovPress@wisconsin.gov 
 
READ: Gov. Evers Sends Letter to Wisconsin’s Congressional Delegation Regarding New Federal Efforts to Undermine Wisconsin’s Artificial Intelligence Laws that Keep Kids and Families Safe
 
MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers sent a letter to members of Wisconsin’s Congressional Delegation urging them to stand up for the families, kids, and communities they represent and to stop federal efforts to undermine states like Wisconsin that have laws designed to keep kids and families safe from harmful uses of artificial intelligence (AI). The governor’s letter comes as President Donald J. Trump recently called on Congress to adopt a national AI policy framework that would preempt state AI laws, bar states from regulating AI development, and prevent states from holding AI companies accountable for harms caused to their residents, among other priorities.

Wisconsin has led the way in taking bipartisan, targeted action to keep Wisconsin kids and families safe from some of AI’s most dangerous misuses, and how broad federal preemption would put all of that progress in jeopardy. Specifically, Gov. Evers noted in his letter that “States are not obstacles to America’s AI leadership,” and that limiting states’ ability to protect communities and respond to rapidly evolving risks will leave Wisconsinites less safe, kids less protected, and bad actors less accountable.

This latest effort comes as last year, Gov. Evers sent a similar letter to President Trump in response to the president’s plans to sign an executive order to prevent state regulation of AI. In that letter, Gov. Evers noted that Wisconsin’s recently passed AI-related laws, enacted with bipartisan support to protect kids and communities from the harmful uses of AI, might be used by the Trump Administration as a reason to withhold federal funding for simply enacting basic AI protections.

Due to the lack of federal regulation of AI, states across the country have begun enacting important safeguards around the use of AI images and video, including Wisconsin, where basic, commonsense AI proposals have garnered bipartisan support. In 2024, Gov. Evers signed 2023 Wisconsin Act 123, a bipartisan law that requires disclosures regarding content generated by AI in political advertisements, and also signed 2023 Wisconsin Act 224, which expands Wisconsin’s existing prohibitions on child pornography to include the receiving, distributing, producing, or possessing of virtual child pornography, often created using AI. Additionally, last October, Gov. Evers signed 2025 Wisconsin Act 34, which bans the posting, publishing, or distribution of “deepfake” images created using AI with the intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate a person.

A transcript of the governor’s letter to Wisconsin’s Congressional Delegation is available below.

Dear Duly Elected Members of Wisconsin’s Congressional Delegation:

I write to ask you to reject President Trump’s latest push to preempt states that have worked in a bipartisan manner to enact reasonable policies protecting our residents from those who would exploit artificial intelligence (AI) to cause harm. Wisconsin has led the way in taking bipartisan, targeted action to keep our kids and families safe from some of AI’s most dangerous misuses. Limiting states’ ability to protect our communities and respond to rapidly evolving risks will leave Wisconsinites less safe, our kids less protected, and bad actors less accountable.

Last December, I wrote directly to President Trump expressing my deep concern regarding this reckless approach, yet still, he signed an executive order directing the U.S. Department of Justice to seek out and challenge state AI laws on the books and threatened to withhold federal funding from states like Wisconsin for enacting basic AI protections. I was cautiously optimistic after Congress voted earlier that year to reject a proposal to impose a decade-long moratorium on state AI regulation, but that optimism was short-lived. President Trump has since called on Congress to pass a national AI policy framework, published on March 20, 2026, that would preempt state AI laws, bar states from regulating AI development, and prevent states from holding AI companies accountable for harms caused to their residents. I am asking each of you to stand up for the Wisconsin families, kids, and communities that you represent and oppose this effort that would limit our state’s ability to keep Wisconsinites safe.

In Wisconsin, we have taken bipartisan action to put in place safeguards for problematic uses of AI, including cracking down on AI-generated sexually explicit materials and deceptive political ads. For example:
  • I enacted 2023 Wisconsin Act 224, which expanded Wisconsin’s existing prohibitions on child
    pornography to include the receiving, distributing, producing, or possessing of virtual child pornography generated using AI.
  • In March 2024, I enacted 2023 Wisconsin Act 123, which requires political candidates and political
    entities to plainly state when their advertisements are generated using AI to help ensure AI-generated
    content is not used by bad actors in political ads to make false claims about candidates to deceive or
    misinform Wisconsin voters.
  • I also enacted 2025 Wisconsin Act 34 to ban the posting, publishing, or distribution of “deepfake” images created using AI with the intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate a person. As you may be aware, “deepfake” images are those in which a person’s body or voice has been digitally altered using AI, typically without their consent, and used maliciously or to spread false information. This legislation was inspired by a real situation here in Wisconsin in which a woman’s photographs were allegedly modified using AI without her consent and reportedly used to harass her.

Wisconsin has made significant progress in protecting people and kids from the very real and disturbing consequences of AI’s harmful misuse, and the laws we have enacted to do so have been supported by both Republicans and Democrats. Broad federal preemption would put all of that progress in jeopardy.

As I noted earlier, this is not the first time Congress has been asked to roll back state AI authority, and Congress has already spoken clearly. Last year, the U.S. Senate voted nearly unanimously to strip an AI moratorium provision from the “Big Beautiful Bill,” a bipartisan rejection joined by governors of both parties and attorneys general from across the country, and for good reason. Overriding bipartisan state laws or punishing states like Wisconsin that have enacted reasonable AI safeguards will let predators off the hook and make it harder for law enforcement to hold those bad actors accountable. States need the ability to respond to new harms as they emerge, and Congress recognized that when it rejected the moratorium provision. Wisconsin has demonstrated that this can be done responsibly, practically, and in a bipartisan way.

I urge you to oppose any federal legislation that would preempt states’ authority to enact common-sense AI
laws and to make clear to your leadership and President Trump that this approach has been rejected before and must be rejected again. States are not obstacles to America’s AI leadership. We are doing the work of protecting our kids, families, and communities, and President Trump’s push to take that authority away would be dangerous and would make our state, including our kids, less safe.

Respectfully,

Tony Evers
Governor
 
An online version of this release is available here.
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