ALEC Releases 2026 State AI Policy Toolkit for U.S. Lawmakers
On February 25, 2026, the American Legislative Exchange Council published its State AI Policy Toolkit—a model-legislation guide for state lawmakers framed as a step-by-step path to seize AI innovation while protecting children and limiting burdensome regulation. The release lands amid accelerating state AI bills and a growing federal push against a 50-state patchwork.
TLDR
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) on February 25, 2026 released the 2026 State AI Policy Toolkit (“The ALEC Guide to a Golden Age of Artificial Intelligence Innovation”). The package offers state legislative leaders model recommendations and policy solutions to promote AI adoption, protect children, and reduce regulatory burden—a free-market-oriented counterweight to more restrictive state AI proposals circulating in 2026.
What’s in the toolkit
From ALEC’s primary publication and press release (February 25, 2026):
- Publisher: American Legislative Exchange Council (authors including Jake Morabito, Jonathan Williams, Lee Schalk, Christian Whittle per publication page).
- Audience: State legislators and staff across all 50 states.
- Framing: Navigate between “AI pessimism and utopianism”; seize the AI moment for state economies.
- Themes (as described in ALEC materials and contemporaneous coverage): step-by-step guidance for leading in AI; protecting children; removing burdensome regulation; model-style recommendations states can adapt.
- Format: Research publication with downloadable PDF toolkit.
ALEC is a long-standing source of model state legislation; the AI toolkit extends that template into frontier-model and generative-AI governance fights that had been mostly federal and blue-state until 2025–2026.
Why this story matters
While Washington debates export controls and voluntary frontier-model access, states write the laws companies ship against first. ALEC’s toolkit is an organized push for light-touch, pro-deployment state AI policy—directly relevant to whether the U.S. ends up with a coherent national approach or a fragmented compliance map that later federal preemption efforts try to unwind.
Sources
- ALEC: “State AI Policy Toolkit: The ALEC Guide to a Golden Age of Artificial Intelligence Innovation” (published February 25, 2026). Primary publication + PDF.
- ALEC press release: “ALEC Releases One-of-a-Kind State AI Policy Toolkit” (February 25, 2026).