Rep. Sara Jacobs Calls on Speaker Johnson to Cancel Recess to Act on AI; Speaker Johnson Starts Recess Early

September 16, 2026 Rep. Sara Jacobs Calls on Speaker Johnson to Cancel Recess to Act on AI; Speaker Johnson Starts Recess Early Rep. Sara Jacobs (CA-51) joined Reps. Don Beyer (VA-08), Ted Lieu (CA-36), and Lori Trahan (MA-03) at a press conference, calling on Speaker Johnson to cancel the upcoming congressional recess and keep lawmakers in Washington to find consensus and pass AI safety legislation; instead, Speaker Johnson sent lawmakers home a day early. Earlier today, the congresswoman joined a bipartisan delegation in pushing House leadership of both parties to take immediate, urgent action to address risks posed by rapidly advancing AI. Watch Rep. Sara Jacobs’ Remarks Here Rep. Sara Jacobs said: “I’ve spent over a decade working on and thinking about AI. I even served as a UNICEF representative to the AI for Good Summit in Geneva in 2017…before it was cool. And what that decade has taught me is two things – that this technology could , emphasis on could , make the world a better place. And it can hurt people – in small everyday ways, and in catastrophic ones. “And Congress hasn’t done enough to make sure it’s the former and not the latter. “AI feels out of control to most Americans right now. Ask any young person, and they’ll tell you. For the first time, Pew Research found that most adults under 30 are more concerned than excited about it. “And yet, Speaker Johnson and President Trump keep repeating the same bad-faith arguments that if we regulate AI, then we’ll lose to China. It’s a complete lie, and it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how and why people use technology. “The race with China isn’t only about who can build the most advanced model first. Getting to the best system first doesn’t matter if people don’t use it or if AI has killed all of us in the meantime. Winning the competition is about which models people use, which models people trust more to use and adopt. “Putting guardrails on AI – stopping the everyday harms already happening when an algorithm gets to decide who gets a mortgage or a job interview, and getting ahead of the bigger risks before they arrive…that isn’t losing the AI race. That’s how we win it. “The FAA didn’t make us lose the competition on air travel, it helped us win it. The Clean Air Act helped car companies learn to innovate with catalytic converters, it didn’t get in the way of their innovation. “But since January of last year, Speaker Johnson has cancelled 62 of 261 scheduled voting days – that’s almost a quarter of the days that Congress could have been in session to pass any one of the bipartisan AI bills sitting in this chamber. It’s 62 days that could have moved the 89 recommendations that the Bipartisan AI Task Force identified almost 2 years ago to guide federal AI governance and innovation. “But instead, Speaker Johnson has been twiddling his thumbs and preaching that Big Tech can police itself. It can’t. It’s our job, and we’re not doing it. “Enough is enough. The American people have waited long enough for Congress to act on AI, and we can’t let all these warning signs pass without action. Speaker Johnson needs to cancel recess so we can get to the hard work of Congress of getting to real consensus, hammering out the details, and passing real AI safeguards.” Background: Rep. Sara Jacobs has been a leader in AI safety throughout her tenure in Congress, sitting on the House Bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence last term and currently on the House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy. She’s introduced several bills to address the everyday harms and catastrophic risks posed by AI, including the Sectoral AI Governance Act, the bipartisan AI Foundation Model Transparency Act, the bipartisan Economy of the Future Commission Act, the bipartisan ATOMIC Act, the AI Tax and Work Protection Act , and more. She’s also passed legislation into law to prevent AI from autonomously launching nuclear weapons and strengthening oversight and accountability of the Pentagon’s use of AI. ### Print Email Share Tweet