Disliking data centers is one of the only issues that unifies our broken country.

According to a Gallup poll from May 2026, seven out of 10 Americans oppose data centers being built in their communities. California, especially, has become a hotbed for data center discourse. Not only is it the state with the third most data centers in the country, behind Texas and Virginia, it’s also the home of Silicon Valley and the tech magnates who develop such infrastructure. 

So far, elected officials have been taking a measured approach to data centers, often erring on the side of less regulation. This is tremendously out of step with the American electorate and, for a truly representative government, should be amended. Opinions on data center construction should be a litmus test for seeking office. 

First, a stance on data centers reveals legislative and regulatory priorities. In this push and pull between monied corporate interests supporting data centers and Californians who oppose it, Governor Gavin Newsom favors corporate leniency. 

Last year, he vetoed a bill that would mandate data center operators to report their water usage, citing his reluctance to impose mandates “without understanding the full impact on businesses and the consumers of their technology.”  The subtext is that his corporate donors may be impacted by reporting. 

Second, data centers are one of the most important environmental issues of the day. Newsom’s hesitancy to regulate data centers in any meaningful capacity mars his reputation as a stalwart environmentalist. There are currently two bills in the California state legislature that would regulate data centers. 

To truly be an environmentalist candidate, one must advocate for the intense regulation of these water- and energy-guzzling plants. It would be in the interest of Californians, as well as Newsom’s future as a politician, for him to sign them. 

Governor Newsom markets himself as a staunch advocate for the environment. His website boasts of him “leading the global shift to our sustainable future.” It is not entirely virtue signaling; Newsom has enacted many pro-environmental initiatives. From signing clean energy and electricity bills into law to incentivizing clean cars and trucks to overseeing California’s joining of the “International Union for Conservation of Nature,” Newsom has a solid environmental track record. 

But data centers, which can use 5 million gallons of water a day and tend to be constructed in places “already facing challenges with grid reliability, water limitations, and local activism,” according to a report out of the Marshall School of Business, ought to be treated as an environmental calamity and treated with the same urgency as Newsom treated gas-powered vehicles. 

In the Los Angeles mayoral race, Nithya Raman supports a moratorium on large-scale data centers until operators can construct them with clean power, water-conscious cooling systems and other environmental protections. Mayor Karen Bass has no such proposal — or any statement addressing data centers — on her campaign website. 

This is a shame because L.A., and California as a whole, are uniquely positioned to lead in data center legislation. Every California politician must have an opinion on it. 

Data centers are enormously unpopular in California, with 73% of California adults opposing their construction in their communities according to a statewide survey from the Public Policy Institute of California. These same communities are actively fighting against data center construction. Monterey Park, for example, rejected data centers being built in their community through Measure NDC. 

Despite their unpopularity, they are incredibly prevalent. Seventy-three data centers are being built in Los Angeles. As a whole, California has nearly 300. USC has its own “state-of-the-art data center” where it leases cabinets to house the computer hardware of faculty and staff, though whether it is purely for colocation purposes as opposed to artificial intelligence optimization and training remains unclear. 

It is also worth acknowledging that since data centers are necessary for an increasingly AI-focused global economy, their construction is zero-sum. If one is not being built in California, they will be built elsewhere, most likely in economically disadvantaged states. 

Since there seems to be stagnation at the executive level when it comes to data center regulation, local municipalities must step up and impose their own zoning and regulatory codes. Angelenos need to force their political candidates to answer the defining data center question.