Dem
53
Ties
2
GOP
45
There is nothing—except maybe puppies and apple pie—that everyone agrees on. No, scratch that. About 8% of Americans are cynophobic (that is, afraid of dogs). And, you guessed it, some people have malusdomesticaphobia (fear of apples). Maybe there is nothing we all agree on.
Case in point. Democrats thought they had a winning message with opposing data centers. Nobody actually likes data centers near where they live. That seems very widespread. Former senator Sherrod Brown (D) has figured this out and made opposition to data centers a central plank of his platform in the Ohio Senate race. Many Democrats cheered him on. But not unions, which previously loved him a whole bunch during his three terms as a senator. In particular, construction unions want more data centers due to the jobs created by their construction. These jobs are well-paying, but temporary since once construction is completed, almost nobody actually works in a data center. They are all administered remotely, often by highly specialized non-union network administrators working in Silicon Valley. At best, there might be one or two local employees who swap out broken disks for new ones once in a while, a couple of specialists to monitor the power and water, and probably a few security guards to watch the property and deter intruders. A billion-dollar data center might employ 10 people. In contrast, a billion-dollar manufacturing facility typically employs 500 to 5,000 (often unionized) workers, depending on the level of automation.
Poor Brown. What's a candidate to do in a state where most people hate data centers but his personal base loves them? Also, since the race is heavily nationalized, he gets lots of donations from out-of-state data-center-hating Democrats. Suddenly loving data centers will: (1) make him sound like a hypocrite and (2) turn off the out-of-state money spigot. His friends understand his problem, but that doesn't solve it. Brett McElfresh, business manager at the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union in Canon, said: "At the end of the day, we're a building trades local. We build things. If we're not building things, our guys don't make money and the economy isn' growing." He knows that data centers consume a huge amount of water for cooling and many plumbers are needed to put in the pipes to get that water where it is needed. Appreciating Brown's problem doesn't solve it.
Brown is trying to thread the needle. He does not oppose data center construction. Instead he wants the tech companies to pay for all the power and water they use so the data centers don't raise local utility rates. But that doesn't address many voters' concerns about construction traffic, noise, pollution, and how a giant data center can disrupt a peaceful community. Another approach he is taking is blaming his opponent, Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), for leading the charge to bring data centers to Ohio, which did raise electricity and water bills.
Husted, previously a big supporter of data centers, is trying to duck the issue now. He hasn't run any ads for or against data centers. He thinks if he hides, the issue will blow over. Guess what? It won't. Brown is not exactly ducking the issue, but talks much more about other things on his résumé, including fighting for public employees right to collective bargaining and bringing home a lot of bacon in Joe Biden's various infrastructure projects. The unions do understand that his heart is in the right place, even if they disagree on data centers.
One twist here is that Husted has championed a bill passed by the House that would make tech companies pay for all the electricity and water they use and also pay for grid updates needed to supply it. Democratic senators now have to decide whether to support the popular bill, which would also help Husted and hurt Brown. None other than Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the #2 Democrat in the Senate, said of the bill: "It's an effort to rescue Husted's campaign." It puts Democrats on the spot. Most of them say they haven't made up their minds yet. Usually, politics trumps policy, so the bill probably will fail. If the Democrats capture Congress, they can also crank up a new bill in January sponsored by their folks. (V)