Surrounded by moratoriums, rural county confronts data center demand and more news from the states

Good evening. Tonight we begin in Washington state, where a rural county that has resisted a moratorium on data center development is now the site of at least six hyperscale data center proposals. 

In New Mexico, the state is pushing back against Trump administration efforts to bypass state laws regarding the use of groundwater near construction of a border wall. 

New records show the extent to which the Department of Homeland Security searched records as part of a sweeping national effort to find voter fraud, targeting nonprofit groups at the same time. And despite the role they will play in determining the future of Social Security benefits, few candidates for U.S. Senate have put forward detailed plans.

Klickitat County in southcentral Washington state stretches for more than 80 miles along the Columbia River, speckled with small towns along the waterfront and within its agricultural lands. It’s here that at least six hyperscale data centers are being proposed, Washington State Standard reports. 

The rural county, best known for wine vineyards and agriculture, has just 24,000 residents. But public records show that data center developers have asked the Bonneville Power Administration and Klickitat Utility District for access to up to 5,655.5 megawatts of power. That’s enough to power up to six million homes or about 15 cities the size of Seattle.

Directly surrounding counties — Skamania, Benton, Yakima and Hood River — all unanimously approved data center moratoriums this year, but Klickitat County commissioners did not. A growing petition in Klickitat County is circulating online, asking county commissioners to enact a moratorium. 

Washington ranks 10th in the country for the number of data centers in operation. On Sunday, more than four hundred people across 19 locations marched to demand a statewide moratorium on data centers. 

Related coverage:

The chief lawyer for New Mexico’s Office of the State Engineer told legislators this week that the state is pushing back against  the Trump administration’s announcement of a “waiver” of all the state’s laws and regulations regarding the use of groundwater to aid construction of a border wall, Source New Mexico reports. 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced Friday in the Federal Register, an official repository of federal announcements, that he had unilaterally decided to waive all New Mexico laws and regulations bearing on water wells being used to build the border wall.

The waiver announcement potentially upended all ongoing lawsuits and challenges the state has mounted in recent months aiming to apply state laws and regulations to at least eight water wells that the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agency and its contractors have drilled to help suppress dust and build roads as part of the border wall effort. 

Iowa’s gubernatorial candidates  accused each other of lying about their residency and family wealth Tuesday while answering questions on the state budget and education during their first debate, Iowa Capital Dispatch reports. 

Democrat Rob Sand and Republican Zach Lahn are expected to face each other multiple times in the run-up to Election Day, in a race that represents one of Democrats' strongest chances at picking up a statewide office currently held by a Republican. 

Moderators presented the two candidates a series of questions on issues including Iowa’s economy, education system and high cancer rates. While Sand and Lahn shared some of their plans to tackle these issues if elected governor, much of the time was spent arguing over talking points brought up on the campaign trail through criticisms and political advertisements.

In Georgia, where the governor’s race is a toss-up between Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican Rick Jackson, the candidates clashed Tuesday night over healthcare, crime, data centers and election security in what will likely be the only opportunity for voters to see the two candidates for governor side by side, Georgia Recorder reports. 

We’ve also got debate coverage in Maine, Maryland, Michigan and South Carolina. Find more state elections coverage and voter guides across the country here.

Tennessee: A judge ruled that the state must “preserve all evidence” related to the failed execution of Christa Pike by two rounds of lethal injection last week. The ruling comes one day after Pike woke up, with her lawyers confirming she was “confused,” “angry” and talking at a local hospital.

Florida: State emergency responders are preparing for landfall of Tropical Storm Isaias, expected to become a hurricane Thursday and reach the northern Gulf Coast on Friday. 

Colorado: A former U.S. Department of Justice attorney said disgraced Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters met with President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss “election integrity” and plans for upcoming elections. 

Louisiana: The Secretary of State was working to restore the correct status for about 67,000 voters after a mishap during routine maintenance earlier this week switched them to inactive.

New Mexico: The state Corrections Department is working to settle a lawsuit over officers’ practice of referring people on probation to federal immigration agents for arrest and deportation. 

Oklahoma: A divided state Supreme Court has invalidated a proposed state question that sought to eliminate property taxes in three years.

Kansas: Mail-in ballots arriving three days after the November general election will still count, an appellate court ruled, citing the need to make sure no votes are lost. 

Virginia: Voters will decide a ballot question in November on whether to automatically restore voting rights after the completion of prison sentences for felony convictions. The restoration of rights is currently decided by the governor. 

New Hampshire: A group working to improve the state’s response to domestic violence incidents is proposing nearly a dozen recommendations to better protect victims — including harsher penalties for repeat offenders and training 911 dispatchers.

Iowa: The U.S. Department of Agriculture launched a program to increase research and sequencing of the country’s seed collection and announced it was “strengthening” its agreement with the Justice Department to investigate competition in the seed industry.

President Donald Trump joined Maryland officials Tuesday to welcome a massive new shipyard they said would bring billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs to the region. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters)

Anduril Industries is set to invest $3.7 billion to construct the new shipbuilding facility at the Tradepoint Atlantic terminal on the site of the former Bethlehem Steel plant. The facility will manufacture components for Virginia-class nuclear submarines, reinvigorating the area’s historical manufacturing industry.

Notably missing from Tuesday’s ceremonies was Democratic Gov. Wes Moore. While the Moore administration said it has been involved in two years of discussions to bring Anduril to Maryland, the governor was disinvited from the event after the White House got involved.

On the same day, US Wind, the company behind a proposed offshore wind development off the coast of Ocean City, confirmed it no longer plans to develop components for wind turbines at the same location, as the project faces legal headwinds and roadblocks from the Trump administration. 

Read more from Maryland Matters.

The Department of Homeland Security obtained tens of millions of unspecified records as part of a sweeping nationwide effort to find voter fraud, according to internal DHS reports, and weighed using undercover agents to investigate voter registration efforts by nonprofit groups, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports. 

The reports from May and June by Homeland Security Investigations, a sub-agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, provide updates on its “election integrity” investigations. They are included in a trove of documents obtained by the pro-democracy group Democracy Forward through a records request and released Wednesday.

Overall, the records offer a window into the Trump administration’s push to root out voter fraud, and especially noncitizen voting, ahead of the midterm elections. While a few months old, they suggest that finding noncitizen voters was an active focus within Homeland Security Investigations, along with identifying any organizations suspected of registering noncitizens to vote. Noncitizen voting is a rare occurrence, studies have consistently found. 

Nearly all of the U.S. senators elected this year will be in office when Congress debates how to restructure Social Security to prevent an automatic drop-off in retirement benefits in 2032, the D.C. Bureau reports. 

Very few candidates in competitive races, however, have policy proposals on their campaign websites and many, when contacted by States Newsroom, declined to share details about which changes they’d support if elected. 

“What’s really disappointing is nobody is talking about a realistic suite of options that will fix it,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. 

More from the D.C. Bureau: Trump auto-enrolls 10s of millions in child investment accounts

As they await a federal decision on a potential nationwide ban on telehealth abortions, anti-abortion activists plan to push more states to require women to visit a doctor’s office, get an ultrasound or wait before they can get abortion pills, Stateline reports. 

Under its current guidelines, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require in-person visits, ultrasounds or waiting periods for women seeking abortion pills. Nevertheless, 10 states without total abortion bans still require them.

In statehouses, the midterm elections could determine whether more states will seek to restrict medication abortion.

More from Stateline: 

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Tuesday signed an executive order meant to “promote responsible AI use within government” by using “pro-human” principles when evaluating artificial intelligence tools, Utah News Dispatch reports. 

The executive order sets a “structured, pro-human framework for artificial intelligence integration across state government,” the governor’s office said in a news release. 

It’s meant to advance Utah’s Pro-Human AI Initiative, an effort launched in December 2025, by directing state agencies to “maintain rigorous safeguards for human agency, data privacy and trust” while also using AI to “enhance public services and improve efficiency,” the governor’s office said.

Under the executive order, state government agencies are directed to require AI literacy training for employees while also requiring them to use AI tools to “streamline internal processes and radically improve citizen-facing applications.”

Cox, a Republican, added that by “ensuring our approach is strictly human-guided and human-enhancing, Utah is demonstrating how state government can lead the nation in deploying cutting-edge technology while preserving individual liberty, privacy, and human dignity.”