People gather on the South Steps of the Texas Capitol to protest data center expansion before a Texas Senate Committee on Finance hearing in Austin, Monday, July 27, 2026.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller speaks at the Capitol to protest data center expansion before a Texas Senate Committee on Finance hearing in Austin, Monday, July 27, 2026.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Maggie Hill, left, of Wimberley, and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller join people on the South Steps of the Texas Capitol to protest data center expansion before a Texas Senate Committee on Finance hearing in Austin, Monday, July 27, 2026.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Clayton Tucker, Democratic candidate for Texas Agriculture Commissioner, speaks at the Capitol to protest data center expansion before a Texas Senate Committee on Finance hearing in Austin, Monday, July 27, 2026.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, asks questions at a Texas Senate Committee on Finance hearing on data center investment and state fiscal effects at the Capitol in Austin, Monday, July 27, 2026.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, listens during a Texas Senate Committee on Finance hearing on data center investment and state fiscal effects at the Capitol in Austin, Monday, July 27, 2026.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
The site of a future data center being built near Abernathy, Texas, Saturday, July 18, 2026, in Hale County, Texas.
Justin Rex/AP Photo/Justin Rex
Rita Beving, of Dallas, protests data center expansion at a rally at the Capitol before a Texas Senate Committee on Finance hearing in Austin, Monday, July 27, 2026.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Sue Ellen Davis of Angleton protests data center expansion at a rally at the Capitol before a Texas Senate Committee on Finance hearing in Austin, Monday, July 27, 2026.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Democratic candidate for Texas agriculture commissioner Clayton Tucker speaks at a rally, Saturday, July 18, 2026, in Lubbock, Texas.
Justin Rex/AP Photo/Justin Rex
Calls are growing among data center opponents for Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session for lawmakers to rein in the projects that have roiled rural communities.
On Monday morning, in advance of two interim hearings this week dealing with data centers, grassroots organizers from across the state convened at the Capitol to voice their opposition to the massive computing centers that have proliferated rapidly over the last year.
The protest comes as data centers have emerged as an unexpected flashpoint ahead of November’s midterms. Roughly 40 people held signs reading “Governor Abbott is all hat and no cattle” and chanted “special session now.”
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DATA CENTER TRACKER: See where data centers are planned or operating near you
Abbott, who as recently as November touted Texas as the “epicenter of AI development,” has sought to address the bubbling backlash among voters in deep-red rural Texas by directing state regulators to ensure data centers do not pass on costs for new electrical infrastructure to ratepayers. He has urged lawmakers, who reconvene for the next Legislative session in January, to repeal the centers’ lucrative sales tax exemptions and set up rules on where they can be built.
Troy Jones, a GOP precinct chair from Paris, said Abbott has not gone far enough.
“To go far enough would be to have a special session to get the House and the Senate to get on board and to get something done,” Jones said. “It just keeps getting kicked down the road. Nobody really wants to do anything. Counties’ hands are tied. They can’t do anything.”
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Abbott is the only official with the power to bring lawmakers back for a special session.
READ MORE: Gina Hinojosa calls on Greg Abbott to halt data center construction
Sid Miller, the outgoing Republican Agricultural Commissioner whom Abbott campaigned against in the primary, pointed to the governor’s office and urged the crowd to call on him to act.
“He can hear everything we’re saying, and I invite him to come down here and join us today,” Miller said. “The governor has authority to bring the legislature back tomorrow. He can have them in session tomorrow. So we’re calling on him to do just that.”
A spokesman for the governor did not comment on the special session requests, but said in a statement that Abbott “has been clear that data centers cannot come before Texas families” and pointed to the governor’s directive from June. The governor’s office last week touted an announcement from a data center developer that said it had decided not to build a planned center in Henderson County, in part because of the governor’s directive.
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“These steps protect Texans from higher costs and negative impacts on their communities,” Andrew Mahaleris said. “Governor Abbott will continue to work with the Legislature to protect Texans and ensure their voices are heard.”
Clayton Tucker, a Democrat running to replace Miller, also spoke. Tucker has built his campaign against data centers and is one of a growing number of Democrats calling for a moratorium as they try to capitalize on the growing rural resentment.
MORE: More Texas communities are taking a stand against data centers. Here’s how lawmakers are responding.
The calls for a special session underscore how quickly the data center issue has evolved. For months, activists have called for a moratorium on construction until lawmakers can pass new rules next year. But now they are pushing for immediate legislative action.
The protest kicked off a week of action organized by the nonprofit Alliance for a Clean Texas.
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Maggie Gannon, a volunteer with the Amanecer People’s Project in El Paso, a grassroots group fighting a massive Meta data center outside the city, said she wants lawmakers to stop offering tax incentives to data center developers.
On Monday, lawmakers began considering options to limit or repeal a decade-old sales tax exemption for data centers that is costing the state more than $1 billion annually.
The 2013 law, a sales tax exemption for qualifying data centers, means data center developers don’t pay taxes on things like electricity, cooling systems and servers for up to two decades.
“What we thought we were voting for back in 2013, it’s a much different animal these days,” said state Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican who chairs the Senate finance committee. “It’s time and it’s appropriate and necessary for the Legislature to reexamine whether this exemption still delivers a return that justifies its rapidly mounting foregone tax revenue.”
Lawmakers initially forecast that the exemption would cost the state only $14.6 million in forgone revenue in 2014 and 2015. But even early projections “significantly” underestimated the cost of the sales tax exemption, said Brad Reynolds, the chief revenue estimator at the Comptroller’s office. “Of course, we never anticipated the kind of rapid development in numbers and scale that we see today.”
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The exemption is estimated to cost the state $3.3 billion in the 2028-2029 biennium.
In 2026 alone, the number of data centers that qualify for the exemption has nearly doubled, Reynolds said. Of the 138 data centers that qualify for exemption, 59 have been certified this year.
In June, Abbott committed to working with lawmakers to repeal the exemption along with “other outdated or unnecessary incentives for data centers.”
Later in the week, lawmakers will discuss plans to build massive electrical transmission lines through west Texas. The plan has sparked suspicion among activists already opposing data centers.
“We know that these 765 lines are mainly being built to service the oil and gas industry, but also to facilitate data center power,” said Amanda Griffin, an organizer with the Hill Country Preservation Coalition. “Our communities don’t get any power. We don’t get any increased grid reliability from this line.”