What the 2022 midterm election results mean for US privacy law

The highly anticipated mid-term elections in the U.S. so far have provided surprising results. Many political pundits expected a “red wave” of Republican candidates to take over both chambers of U.S. Congress. Though control of Congress is still up in the air, Democrats fared better than most expected.

With some of the dust now settled, what do the 2022 midterm results mean for potential passage of the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, both in the lame duck session and the 118th Congress? Will House and Senate committee assignments change? What do the mid-term results mean for enforcement by federal agencies, like the Federal Trade Commission? And how will the results affect state privacy legislation in 2023 and beyond?

To help shed light on these issues, I caught up with R Street Resident Senior Fellow for Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats Brandon Pugh and Public Knowledge Senior Policy Counsel Sara Collins.