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Let states experiment on AI, privacy, cyber, and digital services while using federal floors, interoperability, and preemption only where fragmentation breaks rights.
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AI-researched, unverifiedLast Reviewed
Jul 5, 2026
Cited Sources
11
What is failing, what we would change, and the conclusion we are willing to defend.
The Tenth Amendment should not be reduced to "states can do whatever they want" or "federal law should wipe out state experiments." Modern technology policy needs both national scale and state learning. AI discrimination, privacy, child safety, cyber incident response, health data, elections, public benefits, and digital public infrastructure all cross borders. They also touch local institutions that states run.
Current doctrine gives a workable frame. Murphy, Printz, and New York v. United States bar federal commandeering of state legislatures and officers. Reno v. Condon shows that Congress can regulate states as data holders through generally applicable rules. National Pork Producers narrowed some extraterritorial Dormant Commerce Clause theories, while preemption still blocks state laws that conflict with federal statutes or valid national standards. Colorado's 2024 AI law and 2026 rewrite show the upside and cost of state experimentation: states can move first, learn publicly, and correct burdens before Congress acts.
Use federal floors, not ceilings, for privacy, AI discrimination, cybersecurity, health data, and digital public infrastructure unless Congress makes a clear, evidence-based preemption choice.
Preserve state experimentation through safe harbors, model laws, interstate compacts, federal technical assistance, shared testing infrastructure, and grant conditions that do not commandeer state officials.
Preempt only where fragmentation defeats the right or function: interoperability, cross-state data transfer, national cyber reporting, accessibility, identity credentials, election-system security baselines, and consumer notice formats.
Require federal agencies to publish preemption analyses before displacing state technology laws, including effects on civil rights, small businesses, state capacity, and open-source or public-interest alternatives.
Keep grant conditions clear, related, and noncoercive, so federal funding supports state capacity without becoming backdoor commandeering.
Build state capacity directly: procurement templates, audit labs, public-interest technologists, cyber mutual aid, privacy engineering, and shared evaluation tools.
The party's stance is federalist but not nostalgic. A country-sized network needs national minimums and common rails. It also needs states that can test rules before Congress gets them right.
Turn frustration into useful pressure.
If this position misses evidence or a lived consequence, challenge it. If it holds up, help test it locally and connect it to the issues around it.