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kyrsten sinema
'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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'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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'Crushing Blow to the Labor Agenda' as Manchin, Sinema Block Biden NLRB Nominee
"These two senators effectively handed Trump control of the board when his term begins," noted one observer.
Dec 11, 2024
In a move likely fraught with major implications for worker rights during the impending second administration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump, Democratic-turned-Independent U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema on Wednesday blocked Democrat Lauren McFerran's bid for a second term on the National Labor Relations Board.
With every Republican senator except Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas voting against President Joe Biden's nomination of McFerran for a new five-year term, the fate of the woman who has led the agency since 2021 was up to Manchin and Sinema—who, as More Perfect Union founder and executive director Faiz Shakir put it on social media, "consistently spoiled the story of 'what could have been'" by years of fighting to thwart their own former party's agenda.
Sinema struck first, her "no" vote on McFerran grinding the confirmation tally to a 49-49 tie. Manchin, who showed up later, cast the decisive vote, negating speculation that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Senate president who lost the presidential contest to Trump last month, would break the stalemate.
"It is deeply disappointing, a direct attack on working people, and incredibly troubling that this highly qualified nominee—with a proven track record of protecting worker rights—did not have the votes," lamented Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Chris Jackson, a former Democratic Lawrence County, Tennessee commissioner and longtime labor advocate, called Manchin and Sinema's votes "a crushing blow to the labor agenda."
"By casting decisive NO votes against President Biden's NLRB nominee, they've guaranteed Democrats will lose control of the national labor board until at least 2026," Jackson said. "Their votes effectively hand Donald Trump the keys to the board the moment he takes office again. This is a betrayal of working families—and a gift to corporate interests, which is par for the course for these two."
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA union, said on social media that while "Manchin and Sinema are responsible for killing voting rights, worker rights, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, childcare, vision, and dental for seniors, and an economy built for the people," the two obstructionist senators "are not the story."
"Don't bury the lede," implored Nelson. "The entire GOP has relentlessly fought against anything good for the vast majority of the people of this country. The GOP shows once again their total disdain for their constituents."
"But they better watch what they do in implementing their plans to make it worse," she warned. "These laws are set up to mostly protect corporations and getting rid of the last pathetic bits of worker rights under the law will simply lead to more disruption and CHAOS."
Trump's first term saw relentless attacks on workers' rights. Critics fear a second Trump administration—whose officials and agenda are steeped in the anti-worker Project 2025—will roll back gains achieved under Biden and work to weaken the right to organize, water down workplace health and safety rules, and strip overtime pay, to name but a handful of GOP wish-list items.
The latest votes by Manchin and Sinema—who are both leaving Congress after this term—sparked widespread outrage among workers' rights defenders on social media, with one account on X, formerly known as Twitter, posting: "Manchin is geriatric and Sinema has a long fruitful career ahead of her in a consulting firm that advocates child slave labor, but at least they kicked the working class in the teeth one last time. Nothing to do now but hope there's a hell."
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