Decoding State-Level Regulation with Jason Elliott

This week, Aalok is joined by Jason Elliott, the former Deputy Chief of Staff to California Governor Gavin Newsom, for a conversation about regulating AI at the state level.

Guests:

Jason Elliott, President, Versus Solutions

Timestamps:

Jason's bio (0:16)

Legislating at the state vs. federal level (2:21)

Revisiting SB-1047 (5:58)

SB-53 (13:43)

States as "laboratories of democracy" (19:57)

Influence of SB-53 on subsequent state bills (24:14)

Federal preemption debate (27:59)

Updating existing regulations (40:37)

Additional Reading:

CA Senate Bill No. 1047: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1047

CA Senate Bill No. 53: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53

"The California Report on Frontier AI Policy" by the Joint California Policy Working Group on AI Frontier Models: https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/June-17-2025-–-The-California-Report-on-Frontier-AI-Policy.pdf

"Toward a Federal Framework: Lessons from State and International Frontier AI Regulation" by Laura Caroli and Aalok Mehta: https://www.csis.org/analysis/toward-federal-framework-lessons-state-and-international-frontier-ai-regulation

CA Senate Bill No. 813: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB813

"Independent Oversight Marketplace for AI" by Fathom: https://ivo.fathom.or