Governor Larry Rhoden’s proposed FY 2027 budget includes $87 million from the federal government to build more broadband in South Dakota. Last week the Governor announced that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has approved South Dakota’s proposal for $72 million from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program created by President Joe Biden’s big 2021 infrastructure law. President Biden’s law allocated over $207 million to South Dakota out of over $42 billion to be spent nationwide to expand Internet access for rural and low-income areas.
We’d have had our BEAD money sooner if King Don hadn’t changed the rules to cut eligible recipients and reduce program spending back in June. This $72 million is now imperiled by the dictator’s intent to withhold BEAD funding from states that ignore his executive order purporting to ban state laws restricting artificial intelligence:
Thursday’s executive order will establish an AI Litigation Task Force to bring court challenges against states with AI-related laws, with exceptions for a few issues such as child safety protections and data center infrastructure.
The order also directs the secretary of commerce to notify states that they could lose certain funds under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program if their laws conflict with national AI policy priorities [Madyson Fitzgerald, “States Will Keep Pushing AI Laws Despite Trump’s Efforts to Stop Them,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2025.12.12].
The Legislature passed South Dakota’s first artificial intelligence regulation this year. Senator Liz Larson’s 2025 Senate Bill 164, now Sections 32–37 of South Dakota Codified Law Chapter 12-26 on “Offenses Against the Elective Franchise”, bans the dissemination of unlabeled deepfake images, audio, or video created by AI or other digital technology to influence an election within 90 days of election day. Senator Larson co-authored a letter to Congress last month signed by 280 legislators from 43 states, including eight members of the South Dakota House, telling Congress not to include in the National Defense Authorization Act anything like the ban on state AI regulation that the legislatively incompetent Trump is now attempting to impose by executive fiat:
As state lawmakers and policymakers, we hear regularly from constituents about rising online harms and the growing influence of AI on their lives. In an increasingly fraught digital environment, young people face new risks online, seniors are increasingly targeted by AI-enabled scams, and workers and creators are encountering novel challenges in an AI-driven economy. In the years ahead, AI’s impact will require lawmakers to consider consequential public policy questions, making it essential that states retain the authority to act.
The federal preemption provision under discussion could also nullify a wide range of laws that states have already adopted to address urgent digital issues. In recent years, legislatures across the country have passed AI-related measures to strengthen consumer transparency, guide responsible government procurement, protect patients, and support artists and creators. These laws represent careful, good-faith work to safeguard constituents from clear and immediate AI-related harms. A federal preemption measure on state AI laws risks sweeping these protections aside and leaving communities exposed.
States serve as laboratories of democracy, directly accountable to their residents, and must retain the flexibility to confront new digital challenges as they arise. State experimentation and varied approaches to AI governance help build a stronger national foundation for sound policymaking. And as AI evolves rapidly, state and local governments may be better positioned than Congress or federal agencies to respond in real time. Freezing state action now would stifle needed innovation in policy design at a moment when it is most needed.
We appreciate congressional engagement on AI and stand ready to collaborate on thoughtful national policy. But after years without comprehensive federal action on privacy and social media harms, a broad preemption of state and local AI laws until Congress acts would set back progress and undercut existing protections [South Carolina Representative Brandon Guffey and South Dakota Senator Liz Larson, letter to Congress, 2025.11.24].
Senator Larson’s letter was part of a chorus of opposition that persuaded Congress to drop the ban on state AI laws from the military spending bill last week.
It’s good to hear Senator Larson channeling Justice Brandeis and President Reagan to defend states’ rights and sensible federalism. Maybe we’ll hear Governor Rhoden criticize Trump’s obvious federal overreach, too (psst, Larry: Tenth Amendment!), once he realizes that a federal ban on AI regs could knock a hole in his broadband budget.