Texas state senator, and the author of an open letter that Woolf's Transformer reporting describes as a "bombshell" in the fight over federal preemption of state AI regulation.
The letter
Paxton called for the Senate to remove the moratorium provision, framing the position as consistent with a deregulatory posture rather than opposed to it: "I want Texas to continue to be a light touch regulation state so that we don't inhibit innovation, but we don't beta-test on our kids."
The formulation matters for how the preemption fight is read. It separates opposition to preemption from support for regulation generally — a state legislator in a light-touch state objecting to having the option removed, rather than to the absence of federal rules. That argument was available to legislators who would not have supported a state AI statute themselves, which is part of why the coalition against preemption was broader than the coalition for regulation.
Relationships
- related: How MAGA learned to love AI safety — Nicky Woolf (Transformer, October 2025) — the canonical citation
- related: State-Level AI Regulation, AI and Children, Marjorie Taylor Greene