alt Hacker NewsYeah don't hold your breath.
The heavy anti-datacenter campaigning was primarily aimed at scaring votes out of old people and other low-information voters, and was largely successful. With that mission accomplished it's back to business as usual.
I personally observed old ladies gossiping at the polls. A lot of them don't even know what data centers are, just that they are bad and will steal their electricity and make their arthritis worse.
All politicians regardless of party are bought and paid for.
Literally every instance I've seen where the angry townspeople fought against a data center, the town council unanimously ruled against them without a vote, like the kangaroo court in The Godfather Part 2.
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I think you are oversimplifying the situation. The problem were not data centers per se, but Mr. Paxton, who, except being a rather horrible person (his own party tried to get rid of him) was taking money from lobbyists and then was trying to push their agenda without taking into account any concerns.
Then those who believe specific datacenters need to be built should provide better arguments.
If anything the pro-build people should be for regulation so that citizens can know a local buildout means no power outages, water shortages etc. - preventing communities from rejecting DCs for purely defensive reasons.
It's clear the AI companies have not managed the message here, they have fumbled the politics. This is a deserved loss on their part.