WE'LL GO CAMPAIGN ON IT

Quick question for you. What do you call a bill both parties agree was really a campaign commercial? In Washington, you call it the last week of session. Take the white pill with me this morning. Both sides are in this one, and so is your electric bill.

“So we’ll go campaign on it”

In his Reporter’s Notebook on Monday, Fox’s Chad Pergram asked Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., whether he could say with 110 percent certainty that the Senate’s data center vote was not about helping Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio. Hoeven: “I think it will help him.”

Then Husted said the quiet part into the microphone: “We gave everybody a chance to do something about affordability and the Democrats blocked it. So we’ll go campaign on it.”

Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., saw the same thing from the other side: “I don’t think that there’s a secret that Sen. Husted is trying to pass a piece of legislation so he could go home and run a campaign ad.” Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J.: “this is clearly a political ploy... But it’s certainly good for Sen. Husted.”

WE’LL GO CAMPAIGN ON IT might be the most honest sentence spoken in the Capitol all year. That’s the problem.

What the bill actually does

The Ratepayer Protection Act, H.R. 9340, is about who pays when data centers need grid upgrades. Per Roll Call, it would direct states to consider federal standards making Big Tech and other “large-load” customers carry those costs instead of your utility bill. It would not require states to adopt any particular standard, only to start considering one within a year and finish within two. It would codify parts of President Trump’s voluntary “Ratepayer Protection Pledge.”

It passed the House 417-3, led by Reps. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., and Kathy Castor, D-Fla. In the Senate, the official roll call on Sept. 30 shows cloture on the motion to proceed failed 57-43, three short of 60. All 53 Republicans voted yes. Four Democrats joined them: Maggie Hassan, Amy Klobuchar, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Forty-one Democrats and both independents voted no. It was the second time the Senate blocked it.

Data centers near Ashburn, Va., in Loudoun County, November 2025. Who pays for the grid upgrades behind buildings like these is what the Ratepayer Protection Act was about. Credit: Theodore Christopher, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The red costume: “say yes”

Republicans need Ohio. Husted, appointed to fill JD Vance’s seat, tops CQ Roll Call’s list of the most vulnerable senators and faces former Sen. Sherrod Brown. Brown has branded him “the face of data centers” for promoting them as lieutenant governor, NBC News reports. Pergram notes an internal GOP memo in August showed the party was especially leery of what the data center backlash meant for Husted.

Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio: “So we’ll go campaign on it.” Credit: United States Senate,public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

So the fix was a vote. Husted on the floor: “All we have to do in this chamber is say yes, and it will be on the president’s desk.” Majority Leader John Thune said Democrats blocked it out of “the desire to deny Republicans another win in an election year.”

Here’s the catch. Pergram writes that “Republican senators knew that Democrats wouldn’t accept these proposals. This was about politics.” You don’t get to schedule a vote you expect to lose, then act shocked when you lose it. And a bill that asks states to “consider” a standard is a suggestion with a bill number. Even Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said people “ought to be guaranteed no electricity bills will go up by a cent because of a data center.” Guaranteed. This bill guarantees nothing.

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The blue costume: “a fraud”

Senate Democrats had their own script. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: “Plain and simple, the Ratepayer Protection Act is a fraud. It does not require any protections at all. While Americans are demanding real guardrails on AI and data centers, Republicans are offering a toothless messaging bill.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.: “It is a sham. A charade because it has no enforcement.” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., asked if something beats nothing: “No. You shouldn’t trick people. And this is not even something.”

Fair points, all of them. Now the catch. Nearly every House Democrat voted for this same bill, as Thune pointed out, per NBC. Four Senate Democrats voted yes, including both Georgia senators. And Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., told Pergram on Sept. 23: “I support it and I’d be glad to vote on it.” By the roll call he was a no: “they won’t allow us to have an amendment. And the problem with this bill is that it has no teeth.”

Maybe it has no teeth. It had teeth enough for 417 House members and for Welch a week earlier. When a bill goes from “glad to vote on it” to “a fraud” in seven days, the bill didn’t change. The calendar did. Schumer says he’d rather pass tougher bills from Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Martin Heinrich. Fine. The voters paying those utility bills would settle for either one becoming law.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.: “Plain and simple, the Ratepayer Protection Act is a fraud.” Credit: U.S. Senate Photographic Studio/Jeff McEvoy, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The white pill

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., summed it up: “Has there ever been a late September or October before an election that wasn’t all politics?”

Pergram’s question is the right one: do the parties want the action, or the issue? This fall, both picked the issue. Republicans got a “Democrats blocked lower power bills” ad. Democrats got a “Republicans passed a toothless fraud” ad. We wrote about how these ads bend the math in THE ADS ALREADY KNOW. The grid upgrades still have to be paid for, and nothing passed to decide who pays.

Both costumes

The boring standard: if you say a bill helps families, pass it or make it stronger. Don’t stage it to lose. If you say it’s too weak, write the amendment and fight for it in public. Don’t vote yes in the House and call it a fraud in the Senate.

Ohio voters can follow the money on both sides: the Jon Husted Money Trail, the Sherrod Brown Money Trail and our Ohio Money Map. Everyone else, find your race on the Money Map and electoral map.

Receipts

• Fox News Reporter’s Notebook (Chad Pergram), Oct. 19, 2026. Husted “So we’ll go campaign on it”; Hoeven “I think it will help him”; Kim, Luján, Tillis, Welch, Kaine, Blumenthal and Hawley quotes; GOP memo; “This was about politics.”
• Senate Roll Call Vote 254, Sept. 30, 2026. H.R. 9340 cloture on the motion to proceed rejected 57-43; 3/5 required.
• Roll Call, Sept. 30, 2026. Bill mechanics; House 417-3; Evans and Castor; second rejection; Thune and Husted floor quotes; CQ most-vulnerable list.
• NBC News (Sahil Kapur), Sept. 30, 2026. Brown’s “face of data centers”; Schumer “Plain and simple”; Van Hollen and Heinrich bills; Thune on House Democrats.
• Earlier Hypocrisy Democracy: THE ADS ALREADY KNOW. Reader tools: Jon Husted Money Trail; Sherrod Brown Money Trail; Ohio Money Map; Money Map and electoral map.

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Originally published on Substack.