Most government relations plans still start in Washington. A bill drops, an agency opens a comment period and the team builds a strategy around committee rosters and the Federal Register. But that approach now leaves a risky blind spot in terms of policy.
State attorneys general are setting national policy through lawsuits, subpoenas and settlements, and they are doing it on the issues where Congress has stalled, including AI, antitrust, health care and energy. Republican and Democratic attorneys general are both testing how far state power reaches, and companies in every region are feeling it.
Settlements are setting the rules
While Congress was on August recess, a Meta settlement valued at up to $17 billion made headlines, requiring major changes to how Facebook and Instagram operate for young users. That number is staggering — it is the largest non-tobacco consumer protection settlement in U.S. history, but perhaps more interesting are the terms. When a coalition of attorneys general negotiates together, that agreement can become the de facto standard for an entire industry without a single vote in Congress.
Florida shows how much one office can do on its own. Attorney General James Uthmeier argues that states have a duty to act on AI while federal rules are absent. In June he filed what his office called the first state-led lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. Earlier this year he issued an investigative subpoena to the NFL over the Rooney Rule, putting a national league on defense without filing suit.
On the West Coast, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has used the state’s false advertising and unfair competition laws against health claims his office considers misleading. With the largest state antitrust division in the country, his office leads many of the biggest multistate coalitions.
While Uthmeier’s and Bonta’s politics couldn’t be more different, their playbooks look awfully similar. After all, 42 attorneys general from across the political spectrum joined forces last December to demand safeguards from AI companies, including Meta, OpenAI and Google.
Expect the trend to keep going
Consider action (or better yet, inaction) in Congress. Federal legislation on AI, data privacy and pharmacy benefit managers has stalled for years, and states have moved to fill the gap. State PBM laws now face a string of preemption challenges with mixed results in court. That patchwork will keep growing until Congress acts.
Once you layer in the federal political dynamics, state attorneys general feel further empowered to make a move. Florida alone sued the Biden administration over COVID policy, college accreditation and much more. Democratic attorneys general are now doing the same to the Trump administration; Bonta says his office’s lawsuits have protected more than $200 billion for California. Whichever party holds the White House, the other party’s attorneys general become its most organized opposition.
And what’s a political strategy without ambition? Nearly every AG is elected, and several are running for governor or Senate this cycle. A candidate needs wins voters can see, like a settlement check or a household-name company forced to change course. A case still grinding through discovery doesn’t make the stump speech. That means the election calendar can matter as much as the legal merits in deciding when an AG pushes hard and when the office is ready to deal.
What this means for a government relations strategy
- Put attorneys general on the same map as Congress and the administration. Most companies can name the members of their key House and Senate committees, or which federal agency regulates them. Far fewer can say which attorneys general offices have jurisdiction over their operations, which have the staff to lead a coalition and which courts those offices prefer.
- Start the relationship before there’s a problem. No company wants its first conversation with an attorney general’s office to follow a civil investigative demand.
- Plan communications and legal strategy together. A subpoena announced from a podium does reputational damage long before a judge weighs in, so legal, government affairs and communications teams need one plan for how to respond.
Looking ahead
Companies in heavily regulated industries have always dealt with attorneys general. The difference now is how often a single state office, or a coalition of them, ends up setting policy for the whole country. Congress will eventually legislate on AI, privacy and PBMs. Until then, many of those rules will come out of state attorneys general offices. A government relations plan that stops in Washington misses the people most likely to write your rules next year.
Taylor McCarty Hoover is a senior vice president at Cogent Strategies, where she pairs communications strategy with political insight for clients ranging from small nonprofits to Fortune 500 companies. She has more than a decade of communications experience, including four years on Capitol Hill as communications director for the House Committee on Agriculture under Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA).