But tiptoes around the issue himself
This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for its newsletter here.
Rep. Mike Lawler is seizing a new wedge against his Democratic challenger Cait Conley in their closely watched race for the House seat that includes Philipstown: data centers.
The GOP incumbent’s new seven-figure ad campaign, launched last month, cites Conley’s consulting work for two defense tech firms as an indication that she “wants to build data centers in the Hudson Valley.” An accompanying press release asks, “Does she support Gov. [Kathy] Hochul’s moratorium on new large data centers, yes or no?”
There’s just one catch: Conley has already said she backs Hochul’s one-year pause on data center construction, while Lawler has criticized the pause as reflecting a broader anti-business climate in New York.
“When you look at the situation, and Kathy Hochul implements a statewide moratorium, what she is saying is, ‘Don’t come here, go do your business elsewhere,’ which is why New York state leads the nation in outmigration,” Lawler told Fox Business in August.
Conley, meanwhile, has championed Hochul’s moratorium, saying in July that, if elected, she would “push at the federal level for similar responsible regulation and legislation to ensure that data center companies are not exploiting our communities.”
Lawler’s new ad campaign disregards this record; the 30-second spot replays — three times — a clip of Conley saying, during an April candidate forum, “We need data centers.”
It leaves out what she said just beforehand: “Local officials who are approving these projects need to understand the harm that they are going to bring. … Communities [are] unwittingly agreeing to terms where these data centers are literally profiting off the backs of our communities.”
“We need data centers. We’re not going to get rid of them,” she continued, but added, “We can mandate things to make sure they are better going forward than what we are seeing play out.”
As of July, Conley still worked with one of the two firms at the center of Lawler’s ad campaign, according to an interview with the Rockland County Business Journal. But she said that hasn’t influenced her views on data centers.
Lawler’s campaign did not answer New York Focus’s questions about his position on Hochul’s moratorium or a number of controversial data center projects in the district.
“Congressman Lawler believes local residents should decide what gets built in their community,” wrote Lawler’s campaign manager Ciro Riccardi in an emailed statement. “Municipalities should use every tool available to protect residents’ quality of life and keep the cost off ratepayers, who already pay a third more for electricity than New Jersey and Pennsylvania because of Albany’s energy policies.”
Lawler is cosponsoring a bill, called the Ratepayer Protection Act, aimed at making data centers pay the full cost of any infrastructure upgrades needed to meet their voracious energy demands. The bipartisan bill has drawn opposition from an industry trade group, the Data Center Coalition, which says it unfairly singles out the computing facilities. The bill passed the U.S. House on Sept. 16 with almost unanimous support.
But Lawler has steered clear of local fights.
He has not taken a position — either publicly or in response to New York Focus’s questions — on the expansion of a Rockland County data center operated by the Texas-based company Databank. The project is one of several in the area that have received large tax breaks from local authorities, and it has generated significant local backlash over concerns that it could raise power bills and contaminate the local water supply. (Databank has said the facility will use a closed-loop water system that poses no risk to the adjacent reservoir.)
Conley announced her opposition to the center in July.
“Let’s be clear — Cait Conley supports a data center moratorium. Mike Lawler opposes one,” said Conley spokesperson Maddy Rosen in a statement. “Mike Lawler can lie all he wants to cover up his disastrous record, but at the end of the day, all you have to do is follow the money.”
Conley’s campaign pointed to donations to Lawler’s campaign from banks that have built data centers in the district, namely JPMorganChase and Morgan Stanley. (Lawler has received donations from many other financial services companies, as well.)
Her camp also highlighted Lawler’s support for data center–friendly legislation, including President Donald Trump’s flagship One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025. An early House version that Lawler voted for would have barred states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade. That provision was blocked by the Senate, but the final law included others that could fuel data center construction.
Conley’s campaign told New York Focus, however, that she supports the Ratepayer Protection Act.
As the data center fight consumes the midterm elections, containing energy costs is one area of bipartisan agreement. Trump, too, has embraced a version of the idea: This summer, he pledged to keep consumer bills low, though he has lately defended data centers in increasingly strident terms.
“There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” he wrote on Truth Social on Sept. 14. “WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!”
Data center photo: Chad Davis / Wikimedia Commons; Politician photos: Campaigns of Mike Lawler and Cait Conley | Illustration: Leor Stylar / New York Focus
The headline for this article should be “Lawler Misleads Voters” or “Lawler Lies About Conley’s Views on Data Centers.” That’s what your article says.
I have always respected The Current for its journalistic integrity. However, in recent months, I’ve been surprised to find shoddy journalism in articles you publish in your online edition, written not by Current reporters but by third parties.
The latest of these, “Lawler Attacks Conley on Data Centers,” carries a severely misleading headline. The article’s content clearly shows that Conley has condemned data centers, but Lawler has not and that Lawler is misleadingly attacking Conley to play hypocritical politics. Unfortunately, the headline obscures that fact, and a casual glance would lead any reasoned observer to the opposite conclusion.
By clicking the author’s name or scrolling to the postscript after the article, I learned he is a reporter at New York Focus, so The Current seems to be publishing stories under its own masthead by outside reporters while glossing over the actual source. I don’t know if the headline is his or yours, but either way, The Current abandons its stated policies, namely, “We will accurately reflect the content of stories in headlines and social media posts.”
Additionally, I couldn’t find anything in your “journalistic standards” about using outside sources, but I would think a paper of integrity would be clearer about what types of outside sources you publish, how you vet them and whether you hold them to your stated “standards.”
We occasionally publish or post stories by trusted nonprofit partners such as New York Focus, the Associated Press, the Peekskill Herald and The Daily Catch in Red Hook. They go through the same editing process as our original reporting and are always clearly identified.