Gavin Newsom’s Data Center Plans May Cost Him the Native Vote

Tribes in the Golden State have been dealt a seat at the table in some new measures. But on this hot-button issue, they’ve been iced out.

For Native people in the Golden State, it’s going to be an autumn of mixed messages from the governor’s mansion. This month, Gavin Newsom will decide whether a bill confers California’s 109 Native nations with a government-to-government seat at the table on water policy, the same month it’s anticipated he’ll sign data center legislation—a pair of bills named S.B. 886 and S.B. 887—that gives them no seat at all.

The Karuk Tribe, one of the water bill’s (also known as A.B. 2218) co-sponsors, has actively pushed Newsom to sign it specifically because of the difference it was built to make: The bill “would statutorily require state agencies to both recognize and address water-related inequities caused by state-sanctioned acts of termination, removal, and assimilation, and to consult with tribes when contemplating water-related decisions, regardless of whether environmental review is otherwise required,” said Kenneth Brink, the tribe’s vice chairman.

But the enhanced standing that tribes are set to receive with the passage of A.B. 2218 is set to be eroded by the forthcoming data center bills. Honor the Earth’s data center tracker has mapped at least 106 proposed or operational data centers on or near Native land—exposure reaching a meaningful slice of the country’s 575 federally recognized tribes. California’s tribal consultation gap is a preview of what other tribes can expect elsewhere, and Newsom’s handling of it is being watched by Native voters nationally, not just in-state. Native voters are a significant bloc in swing states like Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada.

Some tribes aren’t waiting to find out how this plays out. The Cherokee Nation, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and Seminole Nation have already banned hyperscale data centers outright, using their own sovereign authority rather than a tribal consultation process that assumes a seat at someone else’s table.

“California’s laws will create a national model,” says Thad Kousser, a UC San Diego political science professor. That means whatever gap exists in the state’s approach to tribal consultation won’t stay contained to California.

If you want a close-up view of how that structural gap in tribal consultation actually works........

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