Newsom signs two AI auditor bills backed by Anthropic

Gov. Newsom has signed two bills that bring the outside auditors of AI models under state oversight, Politico reported on September 9. Both OpenAI and Anthropic backed the legislation.

The first bill comes from Democratic Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan. It creates a registry and ethical rules for third-party auditors, the outside groups AI developers could hire to make sure their models comply with state AI laws. The second comes from state Sen. Jerry McNerney, a former member of Congress. Under it, the state sets criteria for so-called “Independent Verification Organizations” and checks their credentials and their expertise in assessing the risks posed by AI systems.

McNerney used the signing to accuse Washington of inaction. He cited recent revelations that AI models from companies including OpenAI and Anthropic launched hacks on their own during testing.

“Just this week we learned that the most powerful AI systems teamed with AI agents pose real threats to humanity,” McNerney said in a statement. Signing his bill, he added, “sends a clear message that California is taking the lead on assessing AI’s safety risks, since Washington, D.C., is unable or unwilling to do so.”

Newsom also called on the federal government to “step forward with robust, national regulations that match the urgency of this moment.” He made the same argument a year earlier. When he signed SB 53, the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, on September 29, 2025, his office’s release pointed to “the failure of the federal government to enact comprehensive, sensible AI policy” and said the law “fills this gap.” SB 53 took effect on January 1. It requires large frontier developers to publish a frontier AI framework and review it at least once a year, and to report certain safety incidents to California’s Office of Emergency Services.

In a Wednesday message supporting the bills, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane said the company plans to keep up momentum in state legislatures until Congress passes national AI safety regulation. He also endorsed two more California bills. One is SB 1119, a chatbot safety bill aimed at kids, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had contacted Newsom with last-minute concerns about it.

Anthropic’s backing came the same week the Financial Times reported that the company held its newest model back from the UK’s AI testing agency, keeping the government’s evaluators away from it.

“We have always been transparent that AI will bring both enormous benefits and unprecedented risks,” an Anthropic spokesperson said on Wednesday. The company continues to build models with what the spokesperson called “some of the strongest safeguards in the industry,” and that work, the spokesperson said, is “why we believe the world would benefit from the industry adopting a lawful, verifiable way to work together to pace how we release powerful models.”