Did not expect this collab, but I’m here for it.
Clayton Tucker
The Democrat running for Texas agriculture commissioner won a boost from an unexpected source last week: The Republican he’s trying to replace.
Sid Miller, the outgoing commissioner, appeared at a packed campaign event in Matagorda County for Clayton Tucker and told the crowd he agrees with the Democrat on many things — but especially Tucker’s calls for a statewide moratorium on data centers.
“It’s not a Republican issue, it’s not a Democrat issue,” Miller told the crowd. “This is one of those red, white, and blue issues about protecting our community.”
Texas is on track to be the world’s largest data center hub in just a couple of years. Most Republican state leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have wholeheartedly embraced the rush as a boon for the state’s economy.
But there’s a growing backlash from the rural Texans they have long counted as their strongest supporters, as the centers that suck up huge amounts of power and water crop up next to farms, schools and hospitals. At last week’s GOP convention in Houston, activists worked reforms aimed at slowing the data center boom into the party’s legislative priorities.
The agriculture commissioner race could prove a key test of just how much the issue will scramble typical partisan politics.
Tucker is building his entire campaign around the brewing panic, with stickers featuring his name alongside the slogan: “stop AI data centers.”
On a Thursday night, at least 100 people crammed into a small building on the Matagorda County Fair Grounds to hear from Tucker, a political newcomer and rancher from Lampasas, and Miller, a hard right Republican backed by President Donald Trump.
Some in the crowd asked how they could put the brakes on data center construction. One woman asked Miller directly if they should vote for Democrats if Republicans won’t take action.
“You know, basically what she’s asking is, ‘Should we vote on the issues that count towards us?’” Miller, who lost the GOP primary in March, said to the crowd. “And I would say, ‘Vote your conscience. Vote who you think represents you the best.’”
It’s not hard to understand why Greg Abbott would try to have it both ways, which he is of course doing in the most Greg Abbott way possible.
Gov. Greg Abbott gave Texas regulators a month to propose new rules to stop data centers from driving up electricity and water bills for average Texans, but his order is little more than a campaign stunt and cannot change the state’s complicated utility laws.
The governor’s June 10 letter to Thomas Gleeson, chairman of the Public Utility Commission, and Pablo Vegas, CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, is designed to soothe Republican voters who are angry over the data centers that Abbott encouraged to locate in Texas. Polling shows that hatred for data centers is one thing the right and left share.
Abbott issued the letter as delegates to the Republican Party of Texas convention finalized anti-data center language for the party platform. Elected Republicans are expected to pass laws that put onerous obligations on data center operators to supply their own power and water while submitting to local control.
In 2025, Abbott wanted Texas to become the epicenter of artificial intelligence development and celebrated Google’s $40 billion investment in the state. “We must ensure that America remains at the forefront of the AI revolution, and Texas is the place where that can happen,” he said.
State officials have given data centers $1 billion in tax breaks. Now Abbott’s changed his tune.
“The rapid scale of data center development requires oversight to ensure everyday Texans are not burdened with the costs of infrastructure driven by data center expansion,” Abbott’s letter said. “When the PUC and ERCOT conduct this review, they shall take into consideration measures to prevent data centers from shifting development risks and costs onto Texans.”
Unfortunately, Texas law currently prohibits the PUC or ERCOT from intervening, and only the Legislature can change that, explained Scott Ellis, managing partner of Foley & Lardner’s Houston office.
“He doesn’t have that power, obviously the Legislature does,” Ellis told me. “This is a marathon. A lot of things can change between now and when we get to the final form of what this is going to look like, because there are a lot of interests at stake.”
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Abbott’s “directives make clear that economic growth in Texas must strengthen our grid and respect the rights of Texans, not burden them,” wrote Greg Sindelar, CEO of the right-wing conservative group Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Public Citizen, a left-leaning government accountability group, agreed and asked why Abbott is not acting immediately.
“Even if data center legislation is fast-tracked as an emergency item and signed into law, you’re looking at almost a year, at least,” Adrian Shelley, the Texas director, wrote in a statement. “Abbott should convene a special session to address this crisis now, or declare a statewide moratorium on data center construction until sensible safeguards are in place.”
But taking immediate action wouldn’t be fair to the lobbyists or to the data centers and their nascent public relations campaign to save their previous tax breaks. Greg Abbott knows better than to leave fingerprints on anything that he might get blamed for. Whatever else happens, he will have his story straight.