5 AI Bills That Died in 2024–2025 (And What That Means for the Patchwork)
For every state AI law that passed in 2024–25, at least one died. Those failures tell us as much about the political ceiling of AI regulation as the wins do — here are the five most consequential, and what their deaths signal for the next two years.
For every state AI law that passed in 2024–25, at least one died. Those failures tell us as much about the political ceiling of AI regulation as the wins do. Here are the five most consequential AI bills that did not make it — and what their deaths signal about the next two years. This is the short companion to our AI Law Graveyard, which tracks every vetoed, repealed, expired, and court-blocked AI law.
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VETOED
1. California SB 1047 — Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier AI Models Act
California (state) · Vetoed by Gov. Newsom, September 29, 2024SB 1047 (Sen. Scott Wiener) would have made developers of "frontier" AI models — trained above $100M cost or 10^26 FLOPS — legally responsible for safety protocols against "critical harms," including third-party audits, shutdown capability, and incident reporting. Newsom's veto argued the bill applied stringent standards to even basic functions without distinguishing high-risk from low-risk deployments. Its defeat effectively ended state-level frontier-model regulation; later California bills (SB 942, AB 853) targeted outputs and disclosure instead.
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VETOED
2. Virginia HB 2094 — High-Risk AI Developer and Deployer Act
Virginia (state) · Vetoed by Gov. Youngkin, March 24, 2025The High-Risk AI Developer and Deployer Act would have made Virginia the second state (after Colorado) with a comprehensive risk-based AI statute regulating "consequential decisions" in employment, healthcare, housing, finance, and education. It narrowly passed both chambers in February 2025 and was vetoed March 24. Virginia's veto plus Colorado's repeal-and-replace suggest the EU-AI-Act model has little political runway in U.S. states even where it passes the legislature.
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EXPIRED
3. Connecticut SB 2 (2024) — Artificial Intelligence Act
Connecticut (state) · Passed Senate; never called for a House vote (session ended May 8, 2024)Connecticut SB 2 (Sen. James Maroney) would have created an EU-style risk-tiered framework similar to Colorado SB24-205. It passed the Connecticut Senate but stalled in the House at the urging of Governor Ned Lamont, who signaled he would veto it as premature. A 2025 follow-up again cleared the Senate but failed in the House. Connecticut is a case study in how comprehensive AI bills can pass one chamber and die in the other when a governor signals opposition early.
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EXPIRED
4. California AB 2930 — Automated Decision Tools
California (state) · Held on Senate Appropriations suspense file, August 2024AB 2930 (Asm. Rebecca Bauer-Kahan) would have prohibited "algorithmic discrimination" by deployers of automated decision tools across employment, housing, healthcare, and other consequential domains. After passing the Assembly, it was placed on the Senate Appropriations suspense file and held there at the end of the 2024 session — a procedural death without a floor vote. Even in a deep-blue legislature, the cost of comprehensive ADM regulation proved politically unaffordable.
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EXPIRED
5. Oklahoma HB 3577 — AI in Insurance Utilization Review
Oklahoma (state) · Died in chamber, February 2024 (no Senate floor vote)HB 3577 (Rep. Daniel Pae) was a narrowly drawn bill requiring health insurers to disclose use of AI algorithms in utilization review. A House committee passed it 10-0, but the bill died without a full floor vote. Even sector-specific, disclosure-only AI bills can fail in red-state legislatures when industry coalitions quietly oppose them — Oklahoma later adopted the NAIC AI Model Bulletin instead, a regulator-driven workaround now seen in two dozen states.
The pattern across all five deaths is consistent: comprehensive bills lose, narrow bills win. Illinois HB 3773 (employment only), Tennessee's ELVIS Act (voice only), and the Fashion Workers Act (digital replicas only) all became law. SB 1047, HB 2094, SB 2, and AB 2930 all died trying to do too much at once. Expect the 2026–27 wave to follow the narrow template — and expect insurance commissioners, attorneys general, and labor agencies to fill the gaps through bulletins and rulemaking rather than statutes. Browse the full graveyard on the Topic Index.