By Mary Alice Miller
Recent White House media reports have brought the possibility of tepid, voluntary industry regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) to public attention.
Congresswoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY) has been consistent in her call for passage of federal legislation to bring transparency and accountability to the use of AI technologies. She has introduced and co-sponsored several key pieces of artificial intelligence legislation in Congress to target algorithmic bias, deepfakes, and intellectual property protection.

Clarke recently reintroduced The REAL Political Ads Act, legislation to strengthen transparency and accountability in political advertising by requiring disclosure when generative artificial intelligence (AI) is used to create images or videos in political advertisements.
First introduced in May 2023, The REAL Political Ads Act would expand current disclosure requirements for campaign ads to include if generative AI was used to generate any videos or images in the ad.

“As generative AI technologies continue to evolve, clear disclosure standards to preserve transparency are essential to civic engagement. Unfortunately, Congress has failed to keep up the pace with this rapidly advancing technology, leaving voters vulnerable to AI-generated misinformation and disinformation,” said Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke at the reintroduction of this bill.
Rep. Clarke has introduced other AI-related legislation in collaboration with other members of the House and Senate.
In December 2025, Clarke introduced the AI Civil Rights Act in collaboration with Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Ma.).

This bill would prohibit companies from using biased and discriminatory AI-powered algorithms in high-stakes decisions that impact civil rights, civil liberties, and livelihoods (such as housing, employment, education, credit, healthcare, and parole).
Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke introduced the Algorithmic Accountability Act with Senator Ron Wyden in September 2025 to provide greater levels of transparency and accountability for the ways in which companies use AI systems in the decision-making processes of high-impact areas, including in housing, employment, credit, education and others.

AI Law Tracker called the Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2025 “the first major federal attempt to regulate commercial AI use across industries.”
Rep. Yvette Clarke introduced The CREATOR (Creative Rights Ensuring Artists’ Technique and Originality Are Reserved) Act in June 2026 alongside Representatives Beth Van Duyne and Valerie Foushee.
“Creators and artists have been sounding the alarm about the misuse of their work and identities by AI systems,” said Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke.

In a blog post, Adobe (one of the premiere digital software platforms used by creatives) expressed support for the CREATOR Act, stating it would “address a gap in our intellectual property laws by protecting creators against AI-enabled style impersonation.”
An Axios post said the bill matters because “there currently isn’t a legal framework that protects a creator’s style. Copyright laws protect registered works, but not someone’s likeness.”

In September 2023 Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY) and Congressman Glenn Ivey (D-MD) introduced the DEEPFAKES Accountability Act of 2023 to require creators to digitally watermark deepfake content. This legislation would also make it a crime to fail to identify malicious deepfakes, including deepfakes depicting sexual content, related to criminal conduct, used to incite violence, and related to foreign interference in an election.

In December 2025 Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke (NY-09) led 43 of her colleagues in a letter to House and Senate Armed Services Committee leadership urging the exclusion of any moratorium or preemption on state Artificial Intelligence laws in the FY26 NDAA.
“Artificial intelligence offers exciting opportunity and innovations, but without proper protections in place, the potential for harm is too great to ignore,” stated the 44 members in the letter. “Unless and until Congress acts in a comprehensive manner – including to address algorithmic harms and bias – state laws are the only recourse American consumers have for protecting themselves and their data from Big Tech and the multitude of potential harms caused by AI.”
In 2025 alone, all 50 states introduced legislation on AI, and 38 states adopted or enacted 100 measures on the topic. New York State and the New York City Council continue to craft AI legislation.

One of the most impactful Bill’s that Rep. Clarke has sponsored is the No Biometric Barriers to Housing Act of 2025.
Clarke introduced the bill in April 2025. It would ban facial recognition, fingerprint scanners, and other biometric technologies in most federally funded housing (public housing, Section 8 properties, and HUD-assisted developments). It also requires HUD to study how biometric and algorithmic tenant screening tools discriminate against renters, particularly people of color, women, and the elderly.
All of Clarke’s AI-related bills are still in committee, specifically the House Energy and Commerce and House Oversight and Government Reform.

The advancement of AI-related legislation faces tension in the House and Senate.
Roughly one in five members of Congress holds personal or household investments in artificial intelligence (AI) developers, chipmakers, data centers, and cloud infrastructure companies, with combined assets valued between $92.7 million and $351.6 million, according to a report in realsludge.com.
Forbes reports that at least 117 members of Congress (including over 25 senators and more than 100 House members) have disclosed AI- or data-center-linked stock holdings.

The Nation found that around 44 lawmakers who report AI investments sit on key committees with direct jurisdiction over AI safety, consumer protection, trade, copyright, and semiconductor policy (such as the House Energy and Commerce, Judiciary, Science, and Armed Services committees).

And lobbying has spiked. Major AI firms—including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia—spent roughly $7.5 million on federal lobbying in a single recent quarter, pushing their cumulative spending past $37 million since 2024 as legislative scrutiny intensifies, according to an investigation from the Project on Government Oversight.