Data center capital considers pause and more news from the states

Welcome to the new week! Unless your favorite NFL team fell to 0-1 on Sunday, we hope you had a great weekend. We’re starting off this morning with news out of Arizona.

Two Arizona candidates — gubernatorial candidate Risa Lombardo and secretary of state candidate Duwayne Collier — facing civil and criminal investigations into whether they fraudulently qualified for millions in public campaign funding want a court to block the Clean Elections Commission from making them repay the money.

And in Missouri, Republican officials aren’t giving up on the congressional map they pushed through the state Legislature last year, despite two setbacks at the U.S. Supreme Court and a state Supreme Court ruling that the map never became law. Their next chance comes Thursday before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Tomorrow, Delaware voters will head to the polls for the state’s primary election.

Want more news on the go? Follow States Newsroom on Bluesky for the latest on upcoming elections, new state policies and more. 

Colorado: Voters will weigh in on a constitutional amendment this fall that would require law enforcement to more closely cooperate with federal immigration authorities. If passed, the amendment would compel law enforcement to figure out if a person charged with a crime is “lawfully present” in the country.

Alaska: Days after the Department of Law said it found possible gaps in dozens of political candidates’ financial disclosure forms, a review by the Alaska Beacon and interviews with the affected candidates found many of the problems identified by the department either don’t exist, rely on old information, or amount to minor errors. 

Florida: The administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is still not giving firm answers on whether it intends to expand a safety-net healthcare program for low-income children that the Legislature approved. This comes after a bipartisan pair of state senators pushed a top official with the Agency for Health Care Administration for answers on the two-year legal tussle.

West Virginia: A Charleston women’s clinic has launched an ad campaign to inform residents that despite the state’s near total ban on abortion, they still have options. The Women’s Health Center of West Virginia has teamed up with Shout Your Abortion to promote the abortion pill with a new PSA campaign, billboards, mailers and digital advertising.

Alabama: A repeal of the state’s grocery tax, once an effective political impossibility, has become a major bipartisan issue in the fall campaign. Long touted by anti-poverty groups and championed by Democrats, Republicans have sponsored efforts to reduce the tax over the past four years. 

See the rest of the news of the day from all 50 states, plus our D.C. Bureau and Stateline, on News From The States.

Loudoun County, Virginia, the epicenter of Data Center Alley, is set to take up two amendments that would curb data center development, at least temporarily, and permanently end by-right development of the power-hungry data warehouses, Virginia Mercury reports.

Led by the county board member Juli Briskman, the amendments could pause the processing of all new data center applications while the county revisits its zoning ordinances. 

County staff has been directed to develop a plan detailing what a data center pause would look like while the ordinances are being crafted. That report will be presented at Tuesday’s board meeting.

Additionally, Briskman and board member Laura TeKrony have advanced a resolution that could reshape existing data center applications.

County staff are drafting an amendment to end the grandfather clause, which allows data center applications filed prior to the adoption of the March 2025 change that ended by-right permitting for data centers to keep the by-right status. 

The newly proposed amendment would require data centers in the previously grandfathered group to obtain a special exception that includes public hearings and a vote by the full board, steps that are already required for all new applications. 

On Friday, coinciding with the anniversary of 9/11, a few hundred supporters gathered to celebrate the planned opening of a new assisted living care facility tailored for veterans severely maimed in combat, Nebraska Examiner reports. 

The project was a “long time coming,” and executive director John Folsom, a Nebraskan who recently relocated to Florida, helped raise roughly $10 million to build it.

Folsom calls the 30-unit Dunham House a pioneering place that also will tend to spiritual wounds that medicine can’t heal.

The idea, said Folsom, is to provide a residence and activities where younger generations of vets with shared experiences can bond and have a dignified, better quality of life. 

The Dunham House, organized as an independent nonprofit with its own board of directors, is accepting rental applications. Leaders hope to attract vets from across the country dealing with multiple amputations or traumatic brain injury.