Bottoms, Jackson clash over data centers. Both have history with the industry.

But an Atlanta Journal-Constitution review of public records and past actions shows both candidates have more complicated histories with the industry they are now promising to regulate.

Jackson is an investor in a major Texas data center project, and his state financial disclosure lists him as the head of Datahub Developers LLC. Records tie the company to a rural northeast Texas site where a massive hyperscale data center campus is under development.

Credit: Riley Bunch

Credit: Riley Bunch

And Bottoms, back when she was mayor of Atlanta, led the city’s economic development authority in 2018 when it approved a seven-figure tax break as part of a complicated bond transaction for Coda, a mixed-use Georgia Tech project that includes a high-performance computing data center.

The Coda development is not the same sort of sprawling hyperscale campus driving much of today’s backlash. Its footprint is contained within the office building and is far smaller than the vast server farms that have come to define the current debate.

Still, the two records leave both candidates explaining how their past decisions square with the moves they now say are crucial to protect Georgians.

Bottoms reinforced her call during back-to-back events Sunday and Monday for Georgia to temporarily halt new projects while state officials assess their effects on electric bills, local utilities and surrounding communities.

“We don’t need to take another step forward in this state until we fully understand what the impact will be on consumers and what the impact will be on people across Georgia,” Bottoms said Monday in downtown Marietta, flanked by local Democratic leaders.

Jackson opposes a statewide pause and instead has proposed a series of guardrails that would give local governments power to reject projects, require developers to cover infrastructure costs and impose tougher environmental standards.

He has argued that data centers could provide a windfall for communities that want them, and his campaign accused her of “hiding” her own client list. Bottoms said Monday she’d disclose her list when Jackson divulged his records.

Political backlash

Democrats increasingly see an opening to challenge Republicans over a data center boom sparking ongoing political backlash rippling across the state.

That backlash cuts across party lines. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll in April found nearly 53% of likely Republican primary voters disapproved of a data center in their community. Among Democrats, opposition topped 75%.

Few states have more at stake in that debate than Georgia. Metro Atlanta now has more data center space under construction, as measured by electricity use, than any other region in the nation, according to the real estate services firm CBRE.

And multibillion-dollar projects have become the norm across the state, with developments from the state’s booming coast to rural North Georgia.

Democrats point to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s recent move in Texas to pause approvals for hundreds of mostly data center projects until state grid officials complete more audits as evidence that the backlash transcends party lines.

Meanwhile, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and other Republicans are stepping up their support for the industry. The Georgia Chamber, which endorsed Jackson this month, unveiled a six-figure ad campaign Monday supporting data centers.

“It means a stronger tax base without burdening families, better schools, reliable service and real opportunity for workers, small businesses and students,” a narrator said in the 30-second spot, as images of happy children and bustling workers play.

Complicated histories

But the candidates’ own records complicate the clean contrast they are trying to draw, according to an AJC review of records.

Jackson has said his investment in a Texas data center project gives him firsthand knowledge of the industry rather than a conflict that should disqualify him from shaping state policy.

“As a businessperson,” Jackson said recently, “I just want to give them that option so that they know both sides of the street.”

A group called No Bowie County Data Centers has organized against projects linked to Jackson’s company, raising concerns about the strain on the environment and the development process.

Dozens of residents packed a county meeting last month before officials approved the sale of a 582-acre tract tied to the project.

Danny Proctor, a Texas resident who lives in Leary near the data center site, told the AJC in an email that his attempts to reach Jackson over concerns about the project have gone unanswered.

He questioned whether the Republican contender means it when he says “every community needs to have control of whether they have a data center or not — full stop,” during his campaign speeches.

“Those are strong words,” Proctor wrote in an email to Jackson that was obtained by the AJC. “Now you have an opportunity to demonstrate whether they are also a standard you are willing to live by. Because, Mr. Jackson, a principle should not stop at the Georgia state line.”

Proctor did not immediately respond to a request for an interview, but he expressed concerns over the data center’s noise and water impacts with the Courier Georgia digital outlet, alongside questions about transparency.

The latter point has taken root in Georgia communities where data center projects have been announced as finished deals without prior public knowledge or input.

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

The largest of those, a $20 billion data center campus by OpenAI in Effingham County, prompted intense pushback among thousands of upset residents and was decried by Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock over what he called a backroom deal that left neighbors “in the dark.”

The data center at the Coda facility that Bottoms helped complete is about 93,000 square feet and was built into a roughly 755,000 square-foot mixed-use technology complex, with Georgia Tech among its users.

The Invest Atlanta board, which was led in 2018 by Bottoms, unanimously approved up to $440 million in bonds for the project, which included the data center among other things. The bonds were not a direct financing mechanism but instead part of a complicated property tax incentive called lease purchase bonds or “phantom bonds.” As part of the deal, the project received a 10-year property tax abatement totaling more than $5 million.

The Bottoms campaign had argued that smaller facilities like the one at Coda are different from the massive data center campuses now proposed across Georgia.

Bottoms said she has no doubt that tapping the brakes on data centers is essential to her campaign’s “whole ticket energy” platform to elect Democrats down the ballot. She campaigned Monday alongside several local and statewide candidates to reinforce that argument.

“Let us take a pause and assess — fully assess, comprehensively assess — the impact these data centers are having on our environment, on our utility bills,” she said.

Staff writer Zachary Hansen contributed to this report.