Washington, D.C., April 30, 2026 — The National Parents Union (NPU) today applauded the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s unanimous, bipartisan vote to advance the GUARD Act, legislation that would ban AI companion chatbots for minors, require chatbots to disclose their non-human status, and create new criminal penalties for companies that knowingly push sexual content or content encouraging suicide and self-harm to children.
The vote came in a hearing room that included parents who have buried their children after chatbot interactions ended in suicide. Among them: Matt and Maria Raine, Megan Garcia, and Mandi Furniss, families who have spent the last year telling Congress what Silicon Valley refused to admit.
“For two years, parents have been carrying photos of their dead children into Senate offices and begging this country to wake up. Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee finally advanced legislation to address this crisis,” said Keri Rodrigues, mother of five and National Parents Union President. “This is not a debate about innovation. This is a debate about whether a kid in Missouri or Massachusetts or anywhere in between gets to make it to their sixteenth birthday. The GUARD Act says yes. Big Tech’s lobbyists are saying maybe. We are done with maybe.”
“A unanimous, bipartisan committee vote on anything in 2026 is a miracle. A unanimous, bipartisan committee vote on regulating Big Tech is an earthquake,” Rodrigues continued. “Senators Hawley, Blumenthal, Britt, Warner, and Murphy did not get here by accident. They got here because parents refused to shut up and go away.”
NPU has spent the last two years working alongside families whose children were manipulated, sexualized, isolated, and in the most devastating cases coached toward self-harm by AI products built without a single guardrail for kids. The pattern is now well documented in a letter signed by attorneys general from 33 states urging swift passage of the GUARD Act, in Senate testimony from parents of three young men who began self-harming or killed themselves after using chatbots from OpenAI and Character.AI, and in NPU’s own polling with Echelon Insights showing that parents across party lines want federal action now.
“The industry will tell you this bill goes too far. The mothers in that hearing room today will tell you it didn’t come fast enough,” Rodrigues said. “Congress must bring the GUARD Act to the floor now and decide who it answers to.”
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ABOUT THE NATIONAL PARENTS UNION
With more than 1,800 affiliated parent organizations in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, the National Parents Union is the united, independent voice of modern American families. We channel the power of parents into powerful policies that improve the lives of children, families and communities across the United States. https://nationalparentsunion.org/