Lockwood, a former state legislative aide who has earned a reputation as a political bomb-thrower, thrust Oregon into the increasingly bizarre world of artificial intelligence-generated campaign ads more than any other candidate this year. Now, he’s serving as a test case for a two-year-old state law.
The Oregon Secretary of State’s Office is investigating whether Lockwood violated a statute requiring disclosure of AI use in political ads with a flurry of videos he posted to social media during his unsuccessful Republican primary run for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District.
One video depicted U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum, a Democrat whom Lockwood hoped to unseat, handing the keys to a girls’ locker room to a drag queen and saying, “Don’t let me down.” Another portrayed Bynum and Gov. Tina Kotek menacing terrified children as part of an apparent Satanic ritual.
Faced with the prospect of court-imposed penalties because he didn’t label the videos as AI, Lockwood insists he did nothing wrong.
“I deny violating any Oregon law, and I will address specific allegations through the proper legal process, not through selective partisan media traps,” he said in a statement provided through an attorney Wednesday.
Lockwood declined an interview with OPB, but in a written response to state election officials the former candidate appeared ready to argue that his videos were too outrageous to be mistaken for real life.
The over-the-top posts on Lockwood’s campaign Facebook account mirror a national trend. AI tools have made it increasingly easy to crank out videos portraying political candidates as cartoonish villains or superhuman saviors.
During the primary race for Los Angeles mayor this spring, candidate Spencer Pratt generated attention with the help of slickly produced AI videos created by a supporter. The best-known depicted Pratt as Batman — and California Democrats as out-of-touch elites whose policies had ruined the city.
Mike Rogers, a former Republican Congressman from Michigan now running for U.S. Senate, has jumped on the superhero bandwagon with an AI-generated video showing him fighting crime and rescuing an imperiled cat.
The question before election officials in Oregon is whether Lockwood’s use of the technology required him to include a disclaimer that it was created using AI.
In 2024, state lawmakers joined a growing number of states grappling with worries that rapidly improving AI technology could soon lead to an onslaught of “deepfake” media, making it appear that candidates were doing or saying things they never had. Their approach was to require that campaigns disclose if images had been manipulated by AI — a tactic adopted by the majority of more than 30 states that currently regulate AI in campaign ads.
Oregon’s 2024 legislation, Senate Bill 1571, passed with broad bipartisan majorities in both chambers. But while the new rules took effect ahead of the 2024 election, they haven’t seen a test until this year.
A Bend resident named Mary Doyle requested an investigation into Lockwood’s videos on May 15. At the time, Doyle was a Democratic candidate for Oregon’s deep-red 2nd Congressional District. She told OPB this week she learned about Oregon’s regulations on AI campaign ads as part of that race.
“It’s a clear violation of our state statute what Lockwood was doing,” Doyle said. “He wasn’t being held accountable.”
Patti Adair, a Deschutes County Commissioner, defeated Lockwood in the Republican primary in May, garnering 60% of the vote.
The Secretary of State’s office said this week it began looking into Lockwood’s AI use after Doyle’s request. It’s the second active investigation the state has launched this year into a possible violation of the law. The other has to do with whether a candidate for the Deschutes County Commission used AI-generated images of herself in campaign materials.
State investigators could initiate court proceedings against Lockwood if they determine he broke the law. If a judge agrees, the former candidate could face a fine of up to $10,000.
“This is a frivolous censorship complaint filed by another congressional candidate in an effort to weaponize Oregon’s unconstitutional synthetic media law, which was passed by the Democrats to stifle protected speech,” Lockwood said in the statement provided through an attorney.
Whether the state pursues penalties for Lockwood may hinge on whether his videos amount to the kind of AI use lawmakers had in mind when passing the law.
As written, the law defines materials requiring disclosure as “a depiction that a reasonable person would believe is of a real individual in appearance, speech or conduct but that did not actually occur.”
It’s hard to imagine anyone believing the scenes in Lockwood’s videos actually took place.
In the video where Kotek and Bynum are tormenting children, the governor’s eyes glow a demonic red, and Bynum has claws. A statue of a winged goat looks on, blood pouring from its mouth. The clip had logged more than 300,000 views on Facebook as of Wednesday.
The video showing Bynum with a drag queen depicts the politician in an exaggerated McDonald’s uniform — a reference to Bynum formerly running several of the fast food franchises — and doors swinging unnaturally on their hinges.
Commenters on both videos were quick to highlight their AI origins. “Can you try making your point with the data rather than with AI?” one wrote.
Lockwood’s use of AI did not stop with those two videos. An additional post appeared to show an AI-generated scene of rioters in black clothing swarming red-capped Trump supporters in Portland. Another showed an image of Bynum on a mocked-up “Wanted” poster.
Representatives for Kotek and Bynum did not offer comment when asked about the AI-generated depictions this week.
After being notified of the case against him, Lockwood wrote a lengthy response to state election officials in which he denied violating the law. He also noted the law “expressly excludes several categories of content and entities from its reach, including satire or parody.”
“If [Secretary of State] Tobias Read or the Elections Division intends to make this matter a public test of Oregon’s new synthetic media law,” Lockwood’s Wednesday statement to OPB said, “I welcome the microphone to call out all of Oregon’s corruption.”
