What a GOP Sweep of Congress Would Mean for Tech Policy

When it comes to tech policy, the next Congress has a seemingly endless to-do list. It includes hashing out a deal on an elusive federal privacy law, coalescing on how to address booming products driven by artificial intelligence, and countering harms on social media.

With Republicans retaking the Senate and seemingly on track to retain the House, the party may largely be able to set the tone in those legislative negotiations. Here’s what that could look like.

An Early Leg Up in the AI debate

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-New York) last year kicked off a process to educate senators about AI tools and begin sketching out a regulatory approach while House lawmakers launched a new bipartisan task force to craft recommendations on the issue.

But neither has translated into any significant new laws, leaving much unfinished work for Congress.

Schumer and a bipartisan gang of lawmakers in May unveiled a road map that called for billions in new funding for AI research and development and urged key Senate committees to develop legislation tackling potential harms posed by the tools.

Despite the bipartisan support, Senate Republicans are likely to want to put their stamp on the plans moving forward, particularly given President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to repeal President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI once he retakes office.

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Joel Thayer, president of the Digital Progress Institute nonprofit, said Republicans will probably push for more “pro-market” AI proposals that emphasize countering Chinese technologies.

“China and AI will always be a natural fit for policy,” said Thayer, who clerked under former Federal Trade Commission acting chairwoman Maureen Ohlhausen, a Republican.

A Reset on Child Online Safety?

After the Senate overwhelmingly passed a pair of measures to expand privacy and safety protections for children online, House lawmakers are expected to make an end-of-year push to get the bill over the finish line in the lower chamber. But their odds for success are steep given that House Republican leadership has opposed the Senate proposals.

If proponents of the bills fail to convert on their push, the new GOP-led Senate may need to go back to the drawing board on how to win over the House next year.

Still, there is so much momentum behind the issue that additional attempts to pass child safety guardrails are all but guaranteed, said Evan Swarztrauber, a political adviser who served under Republican Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai. “Having a unified government might make it easier to get something done,” he said.

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Trump getting to pick who leads the Federal Trade Commission could also help grease the negotiations, Swarztrauber said, since some conservatives have expressed concern that the recent Senate proposals granted too much new power to current Chair Lina Khan, a Biden appointee.

A More United Front on Privacy?

Republicans have not controlled both chambers of Congress since the beginning of Trump’s first term, when negotiations over a national data privacy framework were in their early stages.

When Democrats controlled both chambers last Congress, they got closer than ever to advancing a bipartisan data-privacy deal in the House. Now Republicans may get their first major chance to pass such a law without divided rule.

That could give them more leverage to go back to the negotiating table and push for more favorable terms on issues that have bogged down talks for years, including whether a federal law should override state privacy laws and give consumers a right to bring their own lawsuits.

“It certainly opens an opportunity for Republicans to try to get consensus towards … a consumer data-privacy bill,” said James Czerniawski, senior policy analyst at the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity.

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An Evolving Game Plan Against ‘Censorship’

For years, Republicans focused their ire over allegations of bias in Silicon Valley at the tech companies and their content moderation decisions. More recently, their focus has shifted to contacts between those social media networks and the federal government.

But with Trump now set to retake the reins of the federal government, and with Republicans having been dealt a string of losses in court in their legal battles against alleged censorship, it’s unclear what legislative maneuvers they may pursue to tackle the issue. It is likely to be a top priority for the party again, particularly given Trump’s focus on it in his first term.

“Having control of both chambers [would give] the Republicans a strong foundation to really look at this issue in a way that they have not been able to in many years because of fragmented government,” Swarztrauber said.