DSA candidate pushes federal AI datacenter moratorium with Michigan early voting underway

By Fox News · Fox News

Michigan House candidate and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member Will Lawrence advocated for a national data center moratorium Saturday during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital. "What I see is that there is an urgent need to have a federal moratorium on new AI data centers so that we can have a national conversation about if we're going to be generating this hyper intelligent AI, what's the best way to do it, and how do we ensure that it benefits everybody rather than just a few billionaires in Silicon Valley?" Lawrence said at a campaign event in South Lansing, Michigan. "I do support a federal moratorium because there may be a right way to build these data centers and generate super-intelligent AI, but what's happening now is the wrong way, because it's abandoning the basic principles of democracy and self-determination that are foundational to the American identity," he also said. BLANCHE URGED TO INVESTIGATE ALLEGED FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN FIGHT AGAINST DATA CENTERS "You have billionaires from Silicon Valley and Wall Street who are coming into small towns and then just telling everybody, 'Trust us, trust us, your energy bills aren't going to rise. This is going to be a great deal for everybody,'" Lawrence continued. In addition to backing a data center ban, Lawrence also bashed President Donald Trump for a number of policies and, like other DSA members, advocated for major campaign finance reform in the form of publicly funded elections. "There's a lot of money in politics, there's no doubt about it. And, I think it does a disservice to the democratic process," Lawrence said. SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN LIMIT ON PARTY CAMPAIGN SPENDING IN COORDINATION WITH CANDIDATES He then took aim at the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, a landmark 2010 decision which ruled that political contributions should be treated as a First Amendment-protected form of free speech. "Unless there's change in the Supreme Court, Ci…