Other Statewide Offices and the Legislature

Thu, 10/15/2026 - 12:00 PM

Attorney General, Chief Financial Officer, Commissioner of Agriculture, and the Legislature

The governor is not the only elected official who can affect Florida’s AI policy. The Attorney General, chief financial officer, commissioner of agriculture and members of the Florida Legislature may all influence the legal and operational environment in which AI is developed and used. The relevant roles differ.

Attorney General

The Attorney General can influence enforcement priorities, bring or defend litigation within the office’s authority, and participate in multistate legal actions. Florida’s OpenAI lawsuit is a concrete example of how that office can shape the state’s approach to AI accountability.

For candidates seeking the office, relevant questions include how they would evaluate AI-related consumer-protection complaints, how they would approach enforcement involving emerging technologies, and how they would distinguish established legal violations from concerns that may require legislation.

Candidate-position status: The existence of the state’s lawsuit establishes the incumbent office’s action; it does not, by itself, establish what every candidate for Attorney General would do if elected. No additional candidate-specific AI policy position is identified here without a supporting public statement or campaign document. The official candidate list is available from the Florida Division of Elections.

Chief Financial Officer

The chief financial officer’s responsibilities differ from those of the Attorney General, but the office may be relevant to AI policy through its statutory financial and administrative responsibilities and its role in state government. Questions for the office include the use of AI in state operations, appropriate controls around automated tools, cybersecurity, and the handling of sensitive information. These are policy questions, not evidence that any particular candidate has adopted a position on them.

Candidate-position status: No specific public AI-policy position is identified here for the candidates for chief financial officer. The official candidate list is available from the Florida Division of Elections.

Commissioner of Agriculture

The commissioner’s portfolio includes areas where AI adoption may have practical implications, including agriculture, land and natural-resource issues, and the use of technology by regulated industries. Those connections make the office relevant to the broader discussion, but they do not establish that the candidates have proposed AI-specific policies.

Candidate-position status: No specific public AI-policy position is identified here for the candidates for commissioner of agriculture. The official candidate list is available from the Florida Division of Elections.

Florida House and Senate

The Legislature will be central to any effort to establish new statewide AI requirements. It can consider consumer protections, disclosures, restrictions on particular uses, rules for public-sector adoption, and provisions addressing the infrastructure supporting AI. The 2026 record shows that proposals can pass one chamber and still fail to become law. Legislators may also shape the details of data-center policy, including the balance among local land-use authority, state oversight, utility costs, water use and economic development.

For voters and practitioners, a useful way to assess legislative candidates is to look for specific proposals rather than broad statements about being “pro-AI” or “anti-AI.” Relevant questions include:

Would the candidate support new legal protections for children interacting with AI systems?
What disclosures, if any, should AI providers be required to make?
Should rules apply broadly to AI systems or only to specified uses and risks?
What safeguards should govern AI tools used by state agencies and public institutions?
How should Florida allocate the costs and responsibilities associated with large data centers?
What should be left to local governments, and what requires statewide standards?

Candidate-position status: This issue does not assign an AI-policy position to individual legislative candidates without a verifiable statement, voting record or campaign document. The fact that a candidate belongs to a particular party, or that a legislator sponsored or opposed a bill, should not be used to infer a position on every other AI-policy question. The Division of Elections provides the official list of offices up for election and candidate listings for the November 3, 2026, general election. Those official lists should be used to confirm candidate names and ballot status, rather than relying on an abbreviated list of prominent candidates.