More than 100 House Democrats asked Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Sept. 16 to cancel the House’s upcoming recess and keep lawmakers in Washington until Congress passes safeguards on advanced artificial intelligence (AI).
The letter, dated Sept. 15 and signed by 107 Democrats, was led by Reps. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.), George Whitesides (D-Calif.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.). Signers include former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“Reasonable minds may disagree about precisely how Congress should regulate this rapidly evolving technology. We cannot disagree about the imperative for Congress to act,” the lawmakers wrote. “Instead of action, you have announced vacation.”
Johnson’s office pointed to the House’s legislative output and to the Speaker’s past comments on AI.
“The Speaker has addressed these calls from Democrats repeatedly this week,” Griffin Neal, a spokesman for Johnson, said in an email to The Epoch Times. “Regarding the letter, this week alone, the House will have passed over 70 pieces of legislation.”
Neal listed several of those bills, including: the Ratepayer Protection Act; the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.); two Congressional Review Act measures to overturn EPA regulations; a bill to expand information-sharing between state administrators and federal law enforcement in fraud investigations; and a bill to create a National Fraud Enforcement Division at the Department of Justice.
Neal also shared Johnson’s recent remarks on AI regulation.
“There’ll be a deliberate discussion about the responsibility of the companies to maintain safety and what role, if any, the government has to play in that. But again, we do not want to jump in—the reflex of legislative bodies is to cover things up with red tape and hyperregulation,” Johnson said. “If you do that, then you lose your edge and that is a national security concern for the American people … we will strike the right balance, but we are not going to act irrationally or haphazardly because that could have negative secondary effects.”
Johnson said he expects President Donald Trump to bring AI company leaders together, probably at the White House, at the end of this week or early next week. He said the meeting had not yet been scheduled.
On proposals from some Democrats to pause AI development or create an international regulator, Johnson said that approach would cost the United States its lead over China.
“If Bernie Sanders is in charge of this thing, he’ll just shut it all down and we’re toast. Because then Xi and China overlap us and become the great superpower on the planet. We’re not doing that,” Johnson said.
In response to calls for a transnational regulatory agency, Johnson said, “We can’t go the globalism route on this either, because that’s not going to work. I mean, it’s like the Paris Climate Accord, right? Let’s impose strict rules on the countries who want to participate while China and other countries just go wild with everything they want to do.”
Trump has said guardrails on AI are unnecessary and alleged there is a “SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers” that only communist China benefits from. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said on Sept. 14 that it is possible to act on hypothetical AI risks without letting China lead in the technology, but that it requires a “light touch.”
At a press conference on Sept. 16, Trahan and Democratic colleagues spoke as the House is scheduled to leave Washington until after the November midterms.
“That’s 53 days. That’s how long we’ll be gone,” Trahan said. “Fifty-three days before Congress can take up legislation to put guardrails on AI.”
She asked House leaders to keep the chamber in session, call a special session, or at least keep a group of lawmakers in Washington. She also rejected the argument that regulating AI would hand China the lead.
“Yet the same folks who oppose AI regulations by citing a race with China are silent while the president greenlights the sale of American-made advanced chips to China,” she said.
Lieu brought up three leading AI company CEOs recently calling for slowing development.
“And what is Speaker Johnson’s response? He literally changed the House calendar to give us two more weeks of vacation time,” Lieu said. “That is completely out of touch with the American people.”
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for an industry-wide slowdown in an essay on Sept. 12. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joined that call the same day. The letter cited a July incident in which, it said, OpenAI models undergoing cybersecurity evaluations evaded controls meant to isolate them from the internet and hacked third-party systems.
“While we’re seeing this firestorm of concern throughout the country around AI safety, we’ve got Speaker Johnson fiddling, and at least Nero had the decency to stay in town while Rome burned,” Liccardo said in a statement announcing the letter. “Speaker Mike Johnson is shutting down Congress for seven weeks. The American people need action, not vacation.”
Jacob Burg contributed to this report.
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