From Bills to Bots: Navigating AI in Arizona Politics
State 48 News finds more Arizona lawmakers turning to AI as a handy tool for research, writing, and navigating modern policy challenges and political messaging.
Yesterday, Arizona Representative Walt Blackman posted an article on X titled "The Republican Party stands at a crossroads." The tone and style of the piece seemed different from Blackman's usual cadence. We didn’t think much of it until later in the day, he announced the launch of his new podcast, The Walt Blackman Show.
When we took a listen, we noticed a few mispronunciations of familiar names. Instead of the usual "guy-YEH-go," referencing U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego, the podcast voice went with "ga-LEG-oh."
Even Representative Blackman’s last name got a creative twist in the pronunciation, sounding as if to put emphasis on the back half of the name, “black-MAN.”
We thought we’d go straight to the source. When we spoke with the lawmaker by phone this afternoon, he took it in stride—and readily admitted he used ElevenLabs AI voice models to help create the podcast.
Blackman says he decided to pick up podcasting again as a personal hobby. When we asked if it was AI-generated, he didn’t hesitate—yep, it was.
“Oh, yeah. Yes.
It’s something I just wanted to try, just wanted to see if it would help any - and I wasn’t too impressed with it.
But, yeah, it’s a hobby - something I like to do on my own. No big deal. Nothing to get wrapped around the axel with.”
Blackman says he’s been upfront about using AI—telling people the podcast is just a hobby and not something he takes too seriously. “I’m being as transparent as I can. It’s AI. It’s a hobby,” he tells us.
Rep. Blackman adds that while he doesn't use AI to write legislation, he does use it for research, noting all bills still go through legislative counsel. “AI is not going away,” he said. “We need to learn how to embrace it—or what have you. But it is not going away.”
As for the podcasting grind? Blackman was quick to give credit where it’s due. “I couldn’t do what you all do,” referring to State 48 News. “That takes a lot of work,” he said with a laugh. (We laughed, too.)
AI Finds a Seat at the Table: Lawmakers at the Capitol Turn to Tech for Research, Writing, and Reform
Arizona lawmakers embracing AI is nothing new. Last year, Rep. Alexander Kolodin made headlines for using ChatGPT to help draft a key section of a new law regulating deepfakes in elections—specifically, the part that defines what a deepfake is.
Finding this particularly funny, we talked with Kolodin by phone, today, too. Does Kolodin find AI as a useful tool?
“I mean there’s a lot of tools, right? As a legislator, you’ve got staff - though, we’re pretty understaffed which is why AI can be helpful. I think it’s a useful tool as long as you understand how it works, and what you can get out of it, and you’ve got some knowledge in the subject area or you’re willing to do a little bit of additional digging to check on the machine. It’s just like anything else. I wouldn’t necessarily want staff to whip up a bill if I didn’t look it over or have somebody knowledgable on the subject look it over. Same thing with AI.”
Kolodin says when he crafted the deepfake bill last year, “I didn’t take everything it spit out. And I had it refine its input.” The legislator says now, a year later, he’s used to working with it. At the time, though, he says he refined AI’s output after a couple of rounds back and forth and made his own revisions to the bill.
What’s even more, Kolodin says he uses AI for other things, too. “I’ll run legislation through it, other people’s bills through it, ask particular questions, or ask questions about bills or subject matter. It’s really handy because it’s really fast.”
“I think especially in legislatures like Arizona’s, you’re going to see it get used more and more frequently because we’re understaffed. We don’t have enough staff to do what we need to do.”
Kolodin says AI has gotten better about removing bias from it but it still learns from the data it’s fed with, and, “The stuff liberal media puts online is liberal, right? And so you have to know - you have to spot when it’s taking you on a liberal direction.”
We asked Rep. Kolodin if AI is the talk of the town at the Capitol or if it’s still pretty new. He thinks he was the first person to use AI for a bill and says, “So, if Representative Blackman is using it that way, it must be catching on. And I’ve introduced one other member to it.”
Kolodin wrapped up the call by noting the use of AI is spreading… even in journalsim.
Both Rep. Blackman and Rep. Kolodin were open and friendly in discussing their use of AI—a tool they see shaping the future of Arizona politics. We appreciated the conversations and look forward to learning more. - State 48 News