Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) vented his frustration on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon after Cory Booker (DN.J.), in an unusual exchange, objected to a bipartisan bill sponsored by Cruz that would crack down on AI-generated fake revenge. obscene
The clash is a sign that Democrats don’t want to hand a legislative victory before Election Day to a Texas incumbent.
The Cruz-sponsored bill, the Take It Down Act, emerged as part of a regular legislative wrap-up session before Congress leaves Washington for a six-week recess for the 2024 presidential election.
But Booker filed a last-minute objection to the Cruz bill, sponsored by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.), Laphonza Butler (Calif.), John Hickenlooper (Colo.), Raphael Warnock (Ga.) and Martin Heinrich (NM).
Booker offered no reason to object, leaving Cruz — who is in the midst of a tough re-election race — fuming on the Senate floor.
“I’m saddened that the senator from New Jersey chose not to provide an explanation for his objection,” Cruz said, pointing out that New Jersey native Francesca Mani had testified before the Commerce Committee about the dangers of deep-seated revenge porn.
“They chose not to give Francesca an excuse as to why she was rejected,” Cruz said after Booker objected..
Normally, senators explain their arguments on the floor.
A frustrated Cruz said he suspected a political role.
He wondered aloud whether Booker was trying to score a “partisan political point” by denying him a legislative victory when he was in a tough re-election race.
“It’s not lost on anyone that this is an election year, and I would say that there is no significant objection, the obvious conclusion is that this objection is being made because we’ve got an election in less than six weeks,” he said.
“I hope he’s not standing here denying these victims of harassment just to score partisan political points. I’d like to think he wouldn’t do that. But to believe he wouldn’t do something like that, he’d have to come up with some reason to deny it.” ,” he said.
Booker is a longtime ally of Cruz’s general election opponent, Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), who reported raising $41.2 million for his Senate campaign in late June.
Booker made a fundraising pitch for Allred on X’s social media platform last year.
“I’ve known this guy for years. So believe me when I say: We need someone like Colin in the Senate,” Booker said in a video, standing next to the Texas congressman in November.
Cruz noted Wednesday afternoon that he circulated the bill to his fellow Democrats and Republicans two weeks ago to iron out potential objections.
He expects to be included in the list of non-controversial items if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) and Republican leaders agree to include them in a package of unfinished bills before he leaves town for the fall campaign.
But Booker’s last weight stopped him in his tracks.
“It clears 99 senators. They have a week and a half to argue. Yesterday, this law was going to be passed, and an hour before it was going to be passed, a senator from New Jersey objected,” said Cruz on the floor, angry that his colleague from New Jersey had blocked the bill mentioned at the last minute. .
Jeff Giertz, a spokesman for Booker, accused Cruz of staging the floor confrontation to score his own political points.
“Sen. Cruz refused to work together to resolve Sen. Booker and other senators’ legal concerns with the Bill. It is clear from Sen.’s social media posts. Cruz said his floor stunt was not about advancing bipartisan legislation but a cynical attempt to score political points in a tight race with Colin Allred. Senator Cruz is trying to create controversy where there is none and should only cooperate and collaborate – something that clearly has no interest,” he said.
A Booker aide said, “The sharing of explicit nonconsensual images online is a serious and urgent issue that Sen. Booker has made a record of being able to address.”
Cruz’s bill would criminalize the publication of intimate porn, known as “nonconsensual intimate images,” and require large tech companies to remove such images within 48 hours of receiving a valid request from the victim.
The law is intended to protect victims such as Mani, a 15-year-old New Jersey high school student who learned last year that a boy in her class was using AI to create nude pictures of her and her classmates to distribute on the Internet.
Mani testified before the Commerce Committee in June that “without Sen. Cruz’s bill, we will continue to have teenagers create AI fake images of girls.”
“The lack of clarity from the law speaks volumes. We are girls ourselves, and considering that 96 percent of the victims of deep AI are women and children, we are also very vulnerable and need your help,” she told the senators.
Cruz pointed out on the floor that the bill includes some of the same language that Booker requested in another bill, the Shield Act, sponsored by Klobuchar. The Senate passed the bill by voice vote on July 10. It would establish federal criminal liability for individuals who share private, sexually explicit or nude images without consent.
Cruz and Klobuchar’s Take It Down Act would go even further by criminalizing AI-generated sexual images.
“The Shield Act was significantly amended at the request of my colleague from New Jersey before allowing it to take effect,” Cruz said. “Now it appears that the senator from New Jersey does not support the language he chose and the language he negotiated and helped draft.”
Klobuchar said, after the floor exchange, that he didn’t know exactly why Booker objected.
“We have to finish it by the end of the year. I’ll try to talk to Cory,” he said. “There is something different for Cory than in the (Shield Act) bill that passed the Senate. … I don’t know. I want to talk to him.”
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