Cordova 2028 Campaign Releases Landmark AI Governance Framework Protecting American Workers, Closing Corporate and Offshore Loopholes, and Banning Foreign Government Control of U.S. AI Infrastructure

The Cordova 2028 campaign today released a four-document policy package establishing the most comprehensive AI worker protection mandate proposed by any presidential candidate in American history. The framework includes: a Presidential Executive Order taking effect on Day One; the American Worker Protection and Human-AI Collaboration Act to be transmitted to Congress on Day One; a complete operational policy framework with implementation standards and regulatory guidance; and a policy brief addressing five distinct threat categories.

The governing principle of the entire framework is stated in one sentence: AI works for people. People are not replaced by AI.

The framework covers all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories and possessions — Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa — on identical terms. No territorial exemption exists under any provision of this framework.

Effective sixty days from the date of signing, no entity operating under the laws of the United States may deploy an AI system for the purpose of, or with the effect of, eliminating, replacing, or substantially reducing a category of human employment without satisfying the requirements of the Human-AI Collaboration Mandate.

The pre-deployment headcount in every affected employment category becomes the permanent minimum floor. This floor does not expire. AI deployed alongside workers, increasing their capability and compensation, is fully permitted and encouraged. AI deployed to eliminate the cost of employing a human being is prohibited.

Algorithmic productivity coercion, constant surveillance designed to induce worker anxiety, automated discipline and termination without human review, algorithmic wage manipulation, and psychological manipulation of workers to suppress organizing activity are all prohibited effective Day One.

Workers who are displaced — under any circumstances, including the narrow hardship exemption — receive 120 days' written notice, 12 months of fully employer-funded retraining in a field of the worker's choosing, 24 months of continued health insurance for the worker and immediate family, and a transition stipend equal to 100% of prior annual compensation for the first year and 50% for months thirteen through twenty-four.

Private equity firms and institutional investors are structurally disqualified from voluntary compliance with worker protection requirements. Their legal obligations, investment mandates, fee structures, and performance benchmarks are built entirely around extraction. This framework does not rely on their voluntary compliance. It prohibits extraction structurally.

Investment agreement clauses that reward headcount reduction through automation, penalize management for maintaining workers, or require AI-driven replacement as a condition of continued investment are void and unenforceable from the date of the Executive Order. Any such provision in any existing or future agreement has no legal force.

Every PE firm and institutional investor with U.S. portfolio company investments must submit a complete audit of every portfolio company's AI deployment status, workforce levels, automation plans, and investment agreement terms to the Human-AI Collaboration Office (HACO) within 120 days of the Executive Order.

Joint and several liability attaches to the investor for every violation by a portfolio company it directed, incentivized, tolerated, or failed to prevent. Corporate separateness is not a defense. The investor owns the outcome.

No entity owned, controlled, directed, or materially influenced by any foreign government — regardless of that government's current diplomatic relationship with the United States, regardless of alliance status, treaty obligations, or the apparent character of the government's current administration — may deploy any AI system within the United States or hold operational control over American critical infrastructure AI. This prohibition is absolute. It contains no allied-nation exception. It contains no trusted-partner carve-out. It does not expire.

The rationale is architectural, not diplomatic: A foreign government that holds operational control over AI systems managing American healthcare claims does not need a hostile act to deny care. It needs a software update. The control point, once established, gives the holder leverage independent of any formal diplomatic action. Governments change. Administrations are captured by financial interests. Leaders are replaced by leaders with different priorities. The control point is permanent. The relationship is not.

Foreign privately-owned AI companies that want to deploy in the United States must obtain a US AI Deployment License — establishing a genuinely independent American subsidiary, maintaining a majority-American board, storing all American data exclusively on U.S. soil, and granting the U.S. government full audit and 24-hour override authority. Licenses are valid for two years and subject to revocation without advance notice.

A U.S. PE firm that moves its AI workforce management systems to servers in Ireland. A London-based hedge fund that directs AI-driven displacement of American workers from its headquarters abroad. An American corporation that runs all its AI operations through a foreign subsidiary and argues that American law does not apply. These arrangements achieve identical harm to American workers through legal geography rather than legal compliance.

The framework applies the extraterritorial effects test — the same principle governing American antitrust and securities law for decades — to AI-driven harm to American workers. If an AI system has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on American workers, this framework reaches the system. Physical location of the AI system is not the jurisdictional standard. Effect on American workers is the jurisdictional standard.

Any corporate restructuring, ownership transfer, or contractual modification executed after the date of announcement of this framework, the effect of which is to reduce apparent exposure to enforcement, is presumed evasive and subject to unwinding.

No insurance company, managed care organization, pharmacy benefit manager, or health plan may deny a claim for medically necessary care based solely or primarily on the output of an automated review system without a licensed physician reviewing, approving, and signing the denial determination. This prohibition takes effect 180 days from the date of the Executive Order.

No AI system, autonomous agent, or automated decision platform may be used to replace, eliminate, or substitute for any employee of any level of government in the performance of any function involving discretionary governmental authority, direct contact with or service to the American public, or the administration, enforcement, or interpretation of law. AI may assist government workers. It may not replace them.

AI deployments that reduce human headcount or decision authority in healthcare, banking, utilities, transportation, emergency services, education, food production, housing, and government services require mandatory HACO pre-approval prior to implementation.

The extractive mandate does not stop at human workers. The same private equity firms and institutional investors that deploy AI to eliminate workers deploy AI to intensify animal confinement, accelerate resource extraction, and consume ecosystems for short-term financial return. This framework addresses all three expressions of the extractive mandate simultaneously.

AI optimization of factory farming that treats animals exclusively as production units without legally binding animal welfare standards as a co-equal constraint is prohibited. AI-driven resource extraction exceeding scientifically established sustainable yield limits is prohibited. AI agricultural systems that deplete soil, water, and pollinator populations faster than those systems can regenerate are prohibited. AI circumvention of NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act is prohibited.

Civil penalties up to $1,000,000 per violation per day. Mandatory full ecosystem restoration at the violating entity's expense. Permanent public registry listing. The protection of workers, animals, and ecosystems are expressions of one principle: life is not a resource to be extracted for financial return.

Every major regulatory framework in American history has been met with the same organized response: an army of lawyers constructing arguments that technically comply while achieving the prohibited outcome. This framework addresses that threat directly.

The substance-over-form standard is absolute: the question is not what an entity calls what it is doing, but what it is actually doing, measured by observable outcomes. If the workforce shrank after an AI deployment and the employer cannot demonstrate every displaced worker was retained in a comparable role, the deployment is a violation — regardless of what the employer calls it.

The Euphemism Watch List, maintained publicly by HACO, identifies terms commonly used to disguise prohibited conduct: "workforce optimization," "intelligent augmentation" where headcount has declined, "role transformation" where the transformed role does not exist, "efficiency realization" where efficiency is measured by headcount reduction. Any compliance filing using a listed term triggers mandatory independent audit within 30 days.

Civil penalties reach $500,000 per affected worker per violation. Violations involving foreign government-connected entities in critical infrastructure carry no statutory maximum — minimum $1,000,000 per violation. Willful violations are referred for criminal prosecution. Every worker displaced by a violation is entitled to mandatory reinstatement with back pay and benefits restoration.

Executive orders can be reversed. Administrations change. Courts interpret. Regulatory agencies can be captured. The rights established in this Executive Order deserve constitutional protection. The Executive Order is a floor, not a ceiling. The ceiling is the Constitution.

The American Worker Protection and Human-AI Collaboration Act converts the Executive Order into durable federal statute. The constitutional amendment process begins on Day One — establishing the right to human labor, the right to human governance, and freedom from AI-driven manipulation in the workplace as permanent constitutional protections. The Attorney General is directed to prepare and transmit proposed amendment language to the relevant committees of Congress within 180 days.

The question of what role machines play in human society — who decides, who benefits, who is protected, and who is accountable — should be answered by the American people through their representatives, not by boardrooms, not by algorithms, and not by foreign capital.

All official documents in the Cordova 2028 American Worker Protection and Human-AI Collaboration framework are available for download below. Vincent Cordova is a candidate for President of the United States.

• ↓Press Release PDF — Cordova Releases Landmark AI Governance Framework
• ↓Presidential Executive Order — Protecting American Workers from Automated Displacement
• ↓American Worker Protection and Human-AI Collaboration Act (Proposed Legislation)
• ↓Complete Policy Document — Operational Framework, Implementation Standards, and Regulatory Guidance
• ↓Policy Brief — Protecting American Workers from AI-Driven Displacement, Financial Extraction, and Foreign Government Control