How Texas Got Here
Conservative anger at liberal city councils gave Abbott the opening he needed. The legislation that followed was sold as fixing one problem — and created another. The same laws that stopped Austin from imposing its agenda on Texas businesses now stop rural Texans from protecting their land from billion-dollar data centers.
What previous Legislatures took away, the 90th Legislature can restore. That is the #1836Project.
When Texans ask their local officials to stop a hyperscale data center, they are told truthfully that nothing can be done. Legislation sold to conservative voters as protection from liberal overreach turned out to be broad enough to strip rural Texans of the same authority it took from Austin city councils.
Some tools existed that gave landowners and voters limited leverage — tools that are now gone, removed by legislation at the request of business lobbying groups.
Before Abbott’s campaign began — limited tools that gave landowners some leverage
Counties still lacked general zoning authority — that door closed in 1969. But a landowner or county facing an unwanted industrial project in 2016 had some tools and leverage that no longer exist:
None were perfect — but together they gave landowners and counties enough leverage to engage with developers on more equal footing. That leverage is now largely gone.
SB 6 and HB 347 end forced annexation — and eliminate the last mechanism cities had to shield rural land from data centers
Forced annexation was a real problem and ending it was right. But the same legislation that stopped cities from annexing rural land without consent also removed the one tool by which a nearby city could have extended its zoning protection to rural parcels targeted for industrial development. Before these bills, a city that wanted to protect surrounding rural land could have annexed those parcels. After 2019, that option is gone. A data center developer buying rural land will never consent to annexation by a city that might zone them out.
The bait: stop cities from gobbling up your land without your consent.
The consequence: a data center developer now has more practical access to your rural land than the nearest city does — because the city needs your consent, and the developer needs nothing.
HB 2127 — The Texas Regulatory Consistency Act — passes on a wave of conservative anger. Rural Texas pays the price.
Backed by Abbott and business lobbying groups, HB 2127 bars cities and counties from any regulation beyond what state law explicitly allows — covering agriculture, finance, insurance, labor, natural resources, and the occupations code. It also lets private businesses sue local governments that step out of line. Passed 84-58 in the House, 18-13 in the Senate. Effective September 1, 2023. A Travis County judge declared it unconstitutional in August 2023 — the State appealed immediately and the law remains in effect pending that appeal.
“We did across-the-board regulatory preemption so that local governments — the city of Austin, for example — are not going to be able to micromanage businesses in the state of Texas… We are going to have one regulatory regime across the entire state on massive subject areas that will make the cost of business even lower, the ease of business even better.”
— Governor Greg Abbott, 2023 conservative policy conference
Texas counties had no zoning authority long before HB 2127 — that door closed in 1969. But whatever marginal maneuvering room commissioners had to push back at the edges, HB 2127 eliminated it — and added the threat of corporate lawsuits to make sure no one tries.
The bait: stop Austin from telling your business what to do.
The switch: your county now can’t stop a billion-dollar data center from moving in next door either.
One regulatory regime across the entire state — and the data center industry knew exactly what that meant before most Texans did.
HB 2127 enrolled text · Texas Tribune · Baker Botts analysis
Chapter 312 — commissioners cut deals with developers while communities have no voice
In the same session that stripped the authority to say no, Chapter 312 of the Tax Code remained wide open for commissioners to hand data centers decade-long property tax abatements. No eligibility restrictions. No job requirements. No wage standards. No mandatory public notice to neighboring landowners. No community voice of any kind. The school district has no vote and no right to object. A commissioners court can approve a ten-year abatement in the same meeting where residents lined up to object — and the deal is done. The people most affected are the last to know and the first to pay.
The AG’s office rules county solar moratorium invalid — setting direct precedent for data centers
Franklin County asked the Office of the Attorney General whether it could impose a moratorium on commercial solar projects. The AG’s office responded in August 2023 that a court would likely find it invalid — commissioners courts have no statutory authority to impose such a moratorium. The ruling wasn’t about data centers. The legal principle is identical. This is why local officials across Texas say their hands are tied. Because under current Texas law, they are. The office was applying the law as written — and the law as written leaves communities with no recourse.
Baker Botts — Legislature and AG limit local regulation (March 2024)
SB 6 — signed by Abbott — requires grid disclosure from data centers, then makes it confidential and exempt from public records
SB 6 did require interruptible load agreements — meaning data centers must curtail when the grid is stressed — a legitimate protection for Texas utility customers. But in the same bill, the Legislature declared that customer-specific grid connection data is confidential and not subject to the Texas Public Information Act. A disclosure law that discloses nothing to the people most affected. The people bearing the costs of the grid strain are the last to know its source.
Texas landowners and voters have very limited ability to influence large-scale hyperscale data center development in unincorporated areas:
This is the result of a decade of centralization — authority shifted away from local landowners and voters. The #1836Project is the conservative answer: restore it.
The Legislature eliminated these local points of control. Only the Legislature can restore them. Your state representative is the only person with the authority and the opportunity to act before the 90th session closes in June 2027. After that, the next window is 2029. By then the buildout may be complete and the leverage gone.
The #1836Project is investigating two tracks: new landowner and voter protections where none existed, and restoration of the authority previous Legislatures stripped away. Similar restoration legislation was filed by a Republican member in the 89th session and did not reach the floor — but the author committed to 2027. [Source: Governing.com, February 2026]
State reps will accept your silence as permission. They take the lobbyist’s call and ignore yours unless you make noise. Sign the open letter. Put your rep on record — for or against — before session opens.
The 90th Legislature can reverse this centralization. The #1836Project offers nine targeted bills — six new protections for Texas landowners and voters, and three rollbacks of previous legislative overreach — to restore local authority and individual property rights. View the nine bills ↗
Texas is not for sale. Let Texans decide. Decentralize. Defend.
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