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'Good!' Declares AOC After Arizona City Council Rejects Data Center Pushed by Sinema
"She can't even be effective as a shill," said one critic of the ex-senator's lobbying.
Dec 12, 2025
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among those celebrating after the Chandler, Arizona City Council on Thursday night unanimously rejected an artificial intelligence data center project promoted by former US Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
"Good!" Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) simply said on social media Friday.
The defeat of the proposed $2.5 billion project comes as hundreds of advocacy groups and progressive leaders, including US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are urging opponents of energy-sucking AI data centers across the United States to keep pressuring local, state, and federal leaders over climate, economic, environmental, and water concerns.
In Chandler, "the nearly 43,000-square-foot data center on the corner of Price and Dobson roads would have been the 11th data center in the Price Road Corridor, an area known for employers like Intel and Wells Fargo," the Arizona Republic reported.
The newspaper noted that around 300 people attended Thursday's meeting—many holding signs protesting the project—and city spokesperson Matthew Burdick said that the government received 256 comments opposing the data center.
Although Sinema skipped the debate on Thursday, the ex-senator—who frequently thwarted Democratic priorities on Capitol Hill and ultimately ditched the party before leaving office—previously attended a planning and zoning commission meeting in Chandler to push for the project. That stunt earned her the title of "cartoon villain."
Sinema critics again took aim at her after the 7-0 vote, saying that "she can't even be effective as a shill" and "Sinema went all in to lobby for a data center in Chandler, Arizona and the council told her to get rekt."
Progressive commentator Krystal Ball declared: "Kyrsten Sinema data center L. Love to see it."
Politico noted Friday that "several other Arizona cities, including Phoenix and Tucson, have written zoning rules for data centers or placed new requirements on the facilities. Local officials in cities in Oregon, Missouri, Virginia, Arizona, and Indiana have also rejected planned data centers."
Janos Marton, chief advocacy officer at Dream.Org, said: "Another big win in Arizona, following Tucson's rejection of a data center. When communities are organized they can fight back and win. Don't accept data centers that hide their impacts behind NDAs, drive up energy prices, and bring pollution to local neighborhoods."
When Sinema lobbied for the Chandler data center in October, she cited President Donald Trump's push for such projects.
"The AI Action Plan, set out by the Trump administration, says very clearly that we must continue to proliferate AI and AI data centers throughout the country," she said at the time. "So federal preemption is coming. Chandler right now has the opportunity to determine how and when these new, innovative AI data centers will be built."
Trump on Thursday signed an executive order (EO) intended to block states from enforcing their own AI regulations.
"I understand the president has issued an EO. I think that is yet to play itself out," Chandler Mayor Kevin Hartke reportedly said after the city vote. "Really, this is a land use question, not [about] policies related to data centers."
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ICE Goons Pepper Spray Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva During Tucson Raid
"If federal agents are brazen enough to fire pellets directly at a member of Congress, imagine how they behave when encountering defenseless members of our community," Grijalva said.
Dec 05, 2025
In what Arizona's attorney general slammed as an "unacceptable and outrageous" act of "unchecked aggression," a federal immigration officer fired pepper spray toward recently sworn-in Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva during a Friday raid on a Tucson restaurant.
Grijalva (D-Ariz.) wrote on social media that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers "just conducted a raid by Taco Giro in Tucson—a small mom-and-pop restaurant that has served our community for years."
"When I presented myself as a member of Congress asking for more information, I was pushed aside and pepper sprayed," she added.
Grijalva said in a video uploaded to the post that she was "sprayed in the face by a very aggressive agent, pushed around by others, when I literally was not being aggressive, I was asking for clarification, which is my right as a member of Congress."
The video shows Grijalva among a group of protesters who verbally confronted federal agents over the raid. Following an order to "clear," an agent is seen firing what appears to be a pepper ball at the ground very near the congresswoman's feet. Video footage also shows agents deploying gas against the crowd.
"They're targeting small mom-and-pop businesses that don't have the financial resources to fight back," Grijalva told reporters after the incident. "They're targeting small businesses and people that are helping in our communities in order to try to fill the quota that [President Donald] Trump has given them."
Mocking the incident on social media, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin contended that Grijalva "wasn’t pepper sprayed."
"She was in the vicinity of someone who *was* pepper sprayed as they were obstructing and assaulting law enforcement," she added. "In fact, two law enforcement officers were seriously injured by this mob that [Grijalva] joined."
McLaughlin provided no further details regarding the nature of those injuries.
Democrats in Arizona and beyond condemned Friday's incident, with US Sen. Ruben Gallego writing on social media that Grijalva "was doing her job, standing up for her community."
"Pepper spraying a sitting member of Congress is disgraceful, unacceptable, and absolutely not what we voted for," he added. "Period."
Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said on social media: "This is unacceptable and outrageous. Enforcing the rule of law does not mean pepper spraying a member of Congress for simply asking questions. Effective law enforcement requires restraint and accountability, not unchecked aggression."
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) also weighed in on social media, calling the incident "outrageous."
"Rep. Grijalva was completely within her rights to stand up for her constituents," she added. "ICE is completely lawless."
Friday's incident follows federal agents' violent removal of Sen. Alexa Padilla (D-Calif.) from a June press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Congresswoman LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) was federally indicted in June for allegedly “forcibly impeding and interfering with federal officers" during an oversight visit at a privately operated migrant detention center in Newark, New Jersey and subsequent confrontation with ICE agents outside of the lockup in which US Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, both New Jersey Democrats, were also involved.
Violent assaults by federal agents on suspected undocumented immigrants—including US citizens—protesters, journalists, and others are a regular occurrence amid the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.
"If federal agents are brazen enough to fire pellets directly at a member of Congress, imagine how they behave when encountering defenseless members of our community," Grijalva said late Friday on social media. "It’s time for Congress to rein in this rogue agency NOW."
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'Cartoon Villain' Ex-Senator Kyrsten Sinema Now Shilling for Big Tech's Power-Sucking AI Data Centers
"Being handmaiden to the AI tech lords in strong-arming local communities to accept AI data centers... is about as low as it goes," wrote one critic.
Oct 27, 2025
A former Democratic senator once known for a purported "independent streak" now says she is working "hand in glove" with the Trump administration to force communities to allow the construction of energy-devouring artificial intelligence data centers.
As reported by YourValley.Net, former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) recently attended a planning and zoning commission meeting in the city of Chandler, Arizona, in which she warned local officials that a massive data center would be built in their community whether they wanted it or not.
According to YourValley.Net, Sinema was at the meeting to advocate for plans created by New York-based developer Active Infrastructure to construct a massive 420,000-square foot data center in the city.
A video of the meeting posted on X by 12News reporter Brahm Resnik shows Sinema telling local officials that if they did not act to approve the data center, then the Trump administration would simply impose it on them without seeking their input.
"The AI action plan, set out by the Trump administration, says very clearly that we must continue to proliferate AI and AI data centers throughout the country," she said. "So federal preemption is coming. Chandler right now has the opportunity to determine how and when these new, innovative AI data centers will be built."
She then added that "when federal preemption comes, we'll no longer have that privilege, it will just occur, and it will occur in the manner in which they want it."
Former US Sen. Kyrsten Sinema lobbies for data center developer at Chandler AZ Plan Commission. Says she's working "hand in glove" w Trump Admin & warns city to embrace DCs or face federal intervention. City Council vote on Sinema's DC scheduled for Nov. 13. pic.twitter.com/KulHg594gj
— Brahm Resnik (@brahmresnik) October 24, 2025
The construction of AI data centers has provoked outrage throughout the US, as local residents have complained about the data centers consuming massive amounts of resources—increasing monthly electricity bills and, in some cases, disrupting local water supplies.
Mike Jacobs, a senior energy manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, last month released an analysis estimating that data centers had added billions of dollars to Americans’ electric bills across seven different states in recent years. In Virginia alone, for instance, Jacobs found that household electric bills had subsidized data center transmission costs to the tune of $1.9 billion in 2024.
Some progressive critics were quick to denounce Sinema lobbying for AI data centers, as it confirmed the view they held during her Senate career that she shilled for corporate interests.
"[I] knew Sinema would show up in some super-scummy corporate role," remarked journalist Nathan Newman in a post on Bluesky. "But being handmaiden to the AI tech lords in strong-arming local communities to accept AI data centers—or face the wrath of the Trump administration—is about as low as it goes."
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) argued that Sinema's comments at the meeting show why "we need a lifetime ban on members of Congress lobbying."
Ian Carrillo, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma, expressed horror at the way major tech companies are deploying people such as Sinema to bully communities into accepting their plans.
"The AI bubble can't pop soon enough," he wrote. "These data centers are rolled out in the most anti-democratic ways, involving NDAs, shadow companies and, according to Sinema, federal preemption."
Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson condemned the former senator for "openly threatening localities."
Sinema's message to Chandler residents, said Robinson, was "Approve resource-sucking AI data centers in your communities, or I will work with the Trump administration to inflict data centers on you without consent, regardless of the harm that occursDrop Site News reporter Ryan Grim, meanwhile, simply labeled Sinema a "cartoon villain."
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