Two bills recently introduced in Congress take direct aim at what critics call a growing apparatus of government censorship, according to a June 24, 2026 commentary published by the R Street Institute. The JAWBONE Act and the Preventing AI Censorship Act would both give Americans a legal path to push back when federal officials attempt to restrict free speech through informal pressure rather than legislation. Together, the commentary argues, these bills offer "the clearest sign in years that momentum may be shifting toward the First Amendment."

The conduct both bills target is called "jawboning," which the report defines as the practice of pressuring private intermediaries into suppressing lawful expression. Government officials use indirect channels and methods—a raised eyebrow from a regulator, a pointed letter, or a quiet threat to initiate legal proceedings—to shape what Americans can see and say without ever passing or defending a law in court. The Biden administration pressed social media platforms to suppress pandemic-related content, while the current Trump administration has publicly threatened broadcasters over the content of late-night programming. The Supreme Court's recent decisions in cases like Murthy v. Missouri have made the underlying coercion nearly impossible to prove, leaving targets of jawboning with almost no recourse.

The JAWBONE Act, introduced by Sen. Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Wyden (D-Ore.), would give citizens the ability to take legal action against any agency, officer, or employee who coerces or attempts to coerce a broadcaster, online service, or AI provider into acting against protected speech. The bill allows a jawboning claim to proceed regardless of whether the coercion succeeded, which answers the causation problem that has derailed many plaintiffs. It bars punitive damages so that the remedy stays tethered to actual injury, and it builds a transparency regime including a public portal logging government communications with companies, inspector general audits, and a complaint channel for providers who believe they've been pressured. The Preventing AI Censorship Act creates a right to sue federal employees if public officials coerce, induce, or encourage an AI provider to suppress or distort its outputs on the basis of viewpoint, or if the government attempts to alter a model's training data or system instructions toward the same end. The commentary notes the JAWBONE Act arrives with backing from a broad ideological and bipartisan coalition, but the AI bill does not yet have cosponsors from both parties.

The report explains that an AI system that's been tuned to disfavor certain views, or whose provider has been pressured into doing so, "censors more efficiently and far less visibly than any human content moderator." That danger doesn't belong to one party—an apparatus capable of shaping what models will say is a loaded weapon that every future administration inherits, and the side that builds it won't always be the side that wields it. The commentary argues the AI bill would be stronger if it borrowed features from the JAWBONE Act, particularly adding a communications portal and logging requirement to surface improper pressure without anyone having to file suit. One provision of the JAWBONE Act allows a state attorney general to sue on behalf of an entire state's residents, which the report warns risks "turning a neutral accountability tool into an instrument of political combat." That provision is identified as the one most in need of narrowing, since politicized enforcement would squander the very consensus that gives these reforms their authority.

Both bills reflect what the commentary calls "a more honest reckoning" that coercion of the companies carrying American expression is a standing temptation no administration has resisted and none should be trusted to resist on its own. For years, the debate over online speech has been a proxy war, each side convinced that government pressure runs in only one direction—against them. Each side has now watched the machinery of informal coercion turn against speech it values, which is why the report argues a durable fix has to operate the same way no matter who holds power. The opening to act on that insight, according to the commentary, won't stay open long.