Ken Paxton's AI-Regulation Plan Was Made With AI

The Plan, Such As It Is

According to The Guardian, Paxton dropped a 'Texas first' four-point datacenter plan on Monday that includes banning Chinese technology from powering US datacenters, holding companies criminally liable when AI chatbots harm children, cutting red tape to protect Texans from higher electricity bills, and supporting Governor Greg Abbott's push to ban new datacenters from rural neighborhoods.

He also wants to repeal sales tax exemptions for the industry and require datacenters to add electricity capacity rather than drain it. On paper, it reads like the kind of thing a guy writes when he's terrified of losing an election he was supposed to win easily. Which is exactly what's happening.

Paxton said in a statement that 'Texans deserve a fighter' to 'stop the negative impact' of datacenters on their neighborhoods. The statement did not address why his fighter graphic needed to be generated by the very technology he now wants to regulate.

The Race That Should Not Be Close

Texas. A Republican running in Texas. With a Trump endorsement. Somehow this is a toss-up.

A Fox News poll from late July, cited by The Guardian, shows Democrat James Talarico leading Paxton 51% to 48%. The Cook Political Report currently calls it a toss-up. Paxton defeated sitting US Senator John Cornyn in a Republican primary runoff to get here, so this isn't a case of a weak candidate sneaking through. He's the guy the MAGA base wanted. And he's losing.

Public opinion on datacenters has moved fast. An Annenberg Public Policy Center survey from last month found that 61% of Americans now oppose a new datacenter being built in their area, up from 49% in March. That includes 54% of Republicans. When you're losing your own voters on an issue the tech industry spent billions making politically safe, you have a problem.

Half a Million Dollars Has a Way of Leaving a Paper Trail

Talarico is not being subtle about what Paxton is doing here. In a statement reported by The Guardian, he said Paxton 'has taken nearly half a million dollars from the data center industry, voted to flood Texas with data centers by giving them billions in tax handouts, and has refused to use his power as attorney general to respond to Texans' requests to block data center development in their communities.'

That last part is worth sitting with. Paxton is the sitting attorney general of Texas. Texans asked him to use that office to fight datacenter development. He didn't. Now he's running for Senate on a platform of fighting datacenter development. The timeline is not subtle.

Talarico also couldn't help twisting the knife on the AI graphic, calling the plan 'a sad attempt to reverse course' that Paxton 'literally used AI to make.' When your opponent's best attack line writes itself and then gets flagged by an algorithm, you are having a bad week.

Abbott's Pivot Is Equally Shameless, Just More Powerful

Paxton isn't alone in the sudden rediscovery of populist skepticism toward the industry. Governor Greg Abbott, who spent years calling Texas the 'epicenter of AI development,' told ABC's This Week on Sunday that tech companies 'basically dug their own grave for the problem that's been caused for them and that's why they got the backlash they deserve.' This is the same Greg Abbott who has been rolling out the welcome mat for these companies for the better part of a decade.

The Guardian also reports that the National Republican Senatorial Committee privately warned leading AI companies that voter anger over datacenters is now endangering the party's Senate seat in Ohio. So this isn't just a Texas story. Republicans are scrambling coast to coast to put distance between themselves and an industry they spent years subsidizing and championing.

Trump, to his credit, is at least being consistent. He told Punchbowl News recently that he thinks the Texas backlash against datacenters 'is a mistake,' adding that communities that want them will see 'a lot of money' come in. So the man who endorsed Paxton is publicly disagreeing with Paxton's central campaign pitch. Normal campaign stuff.

The Scandals Underneath the Scandals

It's easy to get distracted by the AI graphic and forget that Paxton is one of the more thoroughly documented political disasters in recent American history. The Guardian notes that he was impeached in 2023 on corruption charges, then acquitted in a Texas Senate trial. He was indicted on felony securities fraud charges that were later dismissed through a pre-trial diversion agreement in 2024. Last year, his wife of 38 years filed for divorce citing adultery, on what she described as 'biblical grounds.'

And yet here he is, Trump-endorsed, in a dead heat race for the US Senate. If Talarico wins Texas, the story will be about datacenters and public opinion shifting. But the subtext will be that a man who survived impeachment, a felony indictment, and a divorce filed on biblical grounds couldn't survive his own voting record on tax policy.