Source: Inside the next phase of OpenAI’s political strategy Publisher: Politico | Author: Brendan Bordelon Published: May 20, 2026 | Archived: May 20, 2026

Privacy advocates widely viewed those state laws as giveaways to the tech industry**,** particularly because they prevented people from suing over violations. But Lehane said that in this case, OpenAI is asking states to pass relatively strong safety rules that can help halt or reverse growing public opposition to AI.

“We do fundamentally believe that the government has a really important role to play here, and the government playing that role also gives confidence to the public about the nature of this technology,” Lehane said.

Not everyone is convinced. Nathan Calvin, general counsel and vice president of state affairs at AI safety group Encode AI, has clashed with OpenAI over the company’s state lobbying efforts. Last year, OpenAI subpoenaed him over his work on California’s new AI safety law.

Calvin said OpenAI has worked consistently to weaken both that law and its stricter predecessor — a 2024 bill vetoed by Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in part at the urging of OpenAI lobbyists. He said OpenAI also successfully watered down New York’s AI safety law, largely by pressuring Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul to align it closely to California’s framework. And a pro-AI super PAC network called Leading the Future, funded in part by OpenAI President Greg Brockman, has spent well over $1 million to derail the House candidacy of the lead sponsor of New York’s AI law.

Other tech super PACs, backed by Meta and Google, have spent a collective $10.7 million in 10 California state Assembly and Senate races, as POLITICO reported last week.

But even Calvin said he is pleasantly surprised by OpenAI’s endorsement of Illinois’ approach, which includes mandatory third-party audits of AI developers on top of California and New York’s transparency and reporting requirements.

“What I would have predicted of what their engagement would have looked like in Illinois would have been for them to push for making Illinois the same as New York and California, without audits,” Calvin said. “There’s some kind of complexity here that is genuinely tricky.”

“Everything up until Illinois looked extremely reactive and haphazard, to be honest,” Calvin said. “Illinois actually does look more like a deliberate reset and approach \[for OpenAI\], after maybe realizing that some stuff was not working.”

Lehane said he and other OpenAI lobbyists had particular success in shaping California and New York’s AI laws through their governors, who he called “incredibly important.”

“We’re in a day and age where you have a lot of stuff that moves through the legislature, but the governor’s offices end up being where the proverbial buck stops,” he said. Lehane explained that Newsom and Hochul were particularly sensitive to how an overly-strict law could impair their states’ ability to cash in on the AI economy.

Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos said the governor’s decisions on AI policy “are not engineered by any one stakeholder — and any suggestion otherwise is not only false, but a slap in the face to the many people who helped create California’s nation-leading commonsense laws that protect public safety while also fostering innovation. There is no one with an outsized seat at this table.” Spokespeople for Hochul did not respond to a request for comment.

Illinois’ legislative session runs until May 31, at which point Lehane expects his preferred bill will land on Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk. Assuming Pritzker approves the law, the OpenAI lobbyist said there will then be three powerful blue states whose AI safety rules can serve as templates for other Democratic-led regions.

But it will be tough, if not impossible, for OpenAI to shape the growing patchwork of AI safety laws without working with Republicans. And it remains to be seen whether Lehane, given his Democratic background, will have significant sway with Republican legislators or governors.