November 21, 2025

EU’s Major Course Change Regulating Big Tech

EU Reversing Course on Tech Regulation After aggressively regulating the technology industry for over a decade, the European Union is moving to loosen its landmark digital privacy and artificial intelligence rules, in response to growing concern that European tech companies are falling behind those in the United States and China. The potential changes include scaling back the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR...

November 21, 2025

Medical Debt Protection Bills in MI

MI Lawmakers Advance Medical Debt Protections The Michigan Senate’s Health Policy Committee has advanced a trio of bipartisan bills aimed at reducing the burden of medical costs on residents of the state. SB 449 , SB 450 and SB 451 would require hospitals to implement a financial assistance program allowing patients who are uninsured and have annual incomes at or below 350% of the federal poverty line to receive...

November 20, 2025

Trump Administration and States at Odds Over Labor Authority

On the last day of September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill increasing the Golden State’s authority over workplace disputes and union elections . AB 288 by Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor (D) expands the power of the state’s Public Employee Relations Board to include oversight of private sector disputes that fail to draw a quick response from the National Labor Relations Board, as well as elections...

November 13, 2025

Coming Wave of AI Chatbot Legislation & More

Wave of Chatbot Bills Coming Next Year State lawmakers are preparing to introduce a wave of measures in 2026 aimed at regulating AI chatbots, following the lead of California and New York, which enacted first-in-the-nation chatbot laws this year, SB 243 and budget bill SB 3008 , respectively. Next year’s bipartisan legislation is expected to approach chatbots the same way as recent state legislation regulating...

November 13, 2025

OH’s Move to Allow Minors to Work More Hours

OH Seeks to Loosen Hourly Work Restrictions for Minors Ohio lawmakers took action this month to extend the hours minors can work in the state. On Nov. 7 they passed a bill ( SB 50 ) that would allow workers under the age of 16 to work until 9 p.m. more frequently with the permission of their parent or legal guardian. Even if Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signs the bill, however, the state can’t make the change unless the...

November 12, 2025

After Colorado’s Unprecedented Prescription Drug Cap, What’s Next?

A relatively new type of government board took unprecedented action in Colorado last month when it placed an upper limit on the price of an arthritis and autoimmune disease medication. The state’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board voted on Oct. 3 to cap the price of Enbrel at $31,000 a year for patients, making Colorado the first state in the nation to set a cost ceiling on a prescription drug. About 2,500...

October 31, 2025

Predictive Patterns in the Regulatory Process: How Historical Adoption Rates Hold the Key to Forecasting Future Regulatory Action

STATE NET® THOUGHT LEADERSHIP SERIES How Historical Adoption Rates Hold the Key to Forecasting Future Regulatory Action Just as state legislatures vary in their bill passage rates, some state agencies adopt far more of the rules they propose than others. The reasons for that disparity are even more difficult to discern than with the legislative process, but understanding how they shape adoption rate patterns is...

October 29, 2025

Part of MD Digital Ad Tax Law Struck Down

Judge Strikes Down Part of MD Digital Ad Tax Law A federal judge struck down a provision of Maryland’s first-in-the-nation digital advertising tax law that prohibited online companies from notifying consumers about the tax via a fee, surcharge or line item on their bills. The judge said that provision “facially violates the First Amendment.” The state does not intend to appeal the ruling. A separate...

October 29, 2025

NLRB’s Legal Challenge to CA Labor Board Law

NLRB Sues California to Block Labor Board Law The National Labor Relations Board has filed a lawsuit to block a new California law ( AB 288 ) empowering the state’s Public Employee Relations Board to oversee some private-sector labor disputes and union elections. The NLRB has also challenged a similar law ( SB 8034 ) enacted in New York in September. Legislators in both states said the laws were spurred by President...

October 29, 2025

TX AG’s Lawsuit over Tylenol

TX AG Sues Johnson & Johnson over Claimed Tylenol-Autism Link Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) filed a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson this week claiming the company hid the risks of Tylenol, which it sold for decades, from consumers. The suit stems from President Trump’s unproven claim last month that the drug causes autism. The suit also claims that Kenvue, a Johnson & Johnson spinoff company...

October 28, 2025

Rollback of Federal Community Reinvestment Rule Spurs State Legislative Action

Over the past 47 years, seven states have enacted their own, state-level versions of the federal Community Reinvestment Act to ensure financial institutions within their jurisdictions are meeting the banking, lending and investing needs of consumers. Passed in 1977, the federal act was established first to combat redlining , the discriminatory practice of denying loans to people based on their race or ethnicity or the...

October 27, 2025

State Lawmakers Taking More Consumer-Focused Approach to Data Privacy

STATE NET® THOUGHT LEADERSHIP SERIES New State Data Privacy Laws Spell Compliance Challenges Corporate legal and compliance teams may have their hands full navigating through the piecemeal state approaches to data privacy regulation, especially if the new consumer-first legislative trend continues to emerge. The State Net Capitol Journal™ reported on some examples of states that bucked Big Tech’s wishes...

October 27, 2025

State Legislatures Take Action to Regulate Pharmacy Benefit Managers

STATE NET® THOUGHT LEADERSHIP SERIES The Role of Pharmacy Benefit Managers Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are companies that contract with health insurers and employers to manage the prescription drug benefits for millions of Americans. They function as third-party administrators of prescription drug coverage, providing a wide variety of services that range from negotiating prices with drug companies to processing...

October 14, 2025

CA’s Ban on Algorithmic Price Fixing & More

CA Bans Algorithmic Price Fixing California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) signed AB 325 , making it a violation of the state’s antitrust law, the Cartwright Act, “to use or distribute a common pricing algorithm as part of a contract, combination in the form of a trust, or conspiracy to restrain trade or commerce.” California is one of eight states that joined a U.S. Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit...

October 14, 2025

CO’s First-in-Nation Prescription Drug Price Cap

CO Becomes First State to Cap Prescription Drug Price On Oct. 3 Colorado’s Prescription Drug Affordability Review Board set an upper payment limit, or UPL, for Enbrel, a prescription drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases. The cap—limiting what insurers and patients pay for the medication to no more than about $31,000 per year, nearly half the $53,049 average amount insurance...

October 14, 2025

Quantum Computing Starts to Draw State Lawmakers’ Attention

Move over, artificial intelligence. Quantum computing may be the next big thing in tech, and state legislators are beginning to take a look at it. For the uninitiated, quantum computing, like AI, is a new class of technology. But instead of relying upon machine learning and natural language processing , quantum computers leverage the principles of quantum mechanics —that is, the physics of subatomic particles...

October 07, 2025

Reinsurer Reports FL Insurance Industry Reforms Working

Glowing Progress Report on FL Insurance Market from Gallagher Re The insurance industry reforms enacted in Florida in 2022 and 2023 in response to soaring homeowners’ premiums and carrier insolvencies have improved market conditions in the state, according to a report from reinsurance broker Gallagher Re. The number of claims lawsuits against carriers has significantly dropped, insurers’ loss ratios and...

October 07, 2025

CA’s New AI Safety Law & More

CA Enacts AI Safety Law California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed an artificial intelligence safety measure ( SB 53 ), exactly one year after vetoing a similar but broader bill (SB 1047 [2024]). The new law is aimed at preventing the most advanced AI systems from posing “catastrophic risk,” such as by helping to create a biological or nuclear weapon. The New York Legislature passed a similar law in June (...

October 07, 2025

CA’s New Rideshare Driver Unionization Law

CA Enacts Bill Allowing Rideshare Drivers to Unionize California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill ( AB 1340 ) allowing drivers for ride-hailing companies to unionize and bargain collectively for better wages and benefits. The state is the second to allow such workers to unionize, with Massachusetts having done so via a ballot referendum (Question 3) in November. Rideshare drivers in Illinois and Minnesota are also...

October 07, 2025

State Legislators Address Energy Concerns about Data Centers

An international real estate investment firm wants to build a massive data center in north Delaware. The proposed campus would cover 6 million square feet across 11 structures , potentially creating what one industry insider described as “significant construction, utility, and technology jobs for the New Castle area, bringing economic diversification to a region historically dominated by refining and manufacturing...

September 30, 2025

AI Industry Looking to Spend Big on State Races Next Year & More

AI Industry Spending Big to Block State Regulations The AI industry has launched three super PACs in recent weeks that could spend over $100 million largely on statewide races next year. The industry views state regulation, like Colorado’s first-in-the-nation comprehensive AI law passed last year, as its biggest threat. ( PLURIBUS NEWS ) AI Personhood Ban Introduced in OH A bill ( HB 469 ) introduced in Ohio...

September 30, 2025

Rural Healthcare Special Session in ND & More

Special Session on Rural Healthcare Coming in ND North Dakota’s legislature intends to form a new interim committee and hold a special session to allocate $500 million in federal funding for rural healthcare over the next five years. A survey of healthcare providers and the public by the state’s Department of Health and Human Services identified the recruitment and retention of rural healthcare workers as...

September 30, 2025

State Legislators Target Prior Authorization

People hate to wait in line. So is it any wonder that this year state legislators have targeted prior authorization , the policy mandating that patients wait for medical services until insurance companies sign off on them? Long derided by both patients and physicians alike, prior authorization raises the stakes on our natural, human dislike of uncertainty by combining it with a major source of our modern anxieties,...

September 23, 2025

Proposed Changes to CA’s Insurance Rate Filing Intervenor Process

CA Insurance Commissioner Seeking Reforms to Intervenor Process California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara (D) announced he wants to make changes to the foundational insurance law approved by the state’s voters in 1988, Proposition 103, including to its intervenor process, which allows groups to participate in the rate filing process on behalf of consumers. Lara’s proposed changes would clarify how intervenors...

September 23, 2025

State Lawmakers’ Concern with AI-Based Home Rental Pricing

Nearly Half of States Target AI-Based Home Rental Pricing in 2025 Lawmakers introduced bills aimed at restricting the use of artificial intelligence in setting housing rental prices in 23 states this year, part of a larger trend of legislation targeting the use of AI in price setting in general. The measures include a proposed ban on rent algorithms in Colorado ( HB 1004 ) vetoed by Gov. Jared Polis (D) in May, and...