Tomorrow is the first day of early voting in the April 21 redistricting referendum. I’ll be out at polling places in Northern Virginia to see what turnout looks like and what voters have to say. 

US Sen. Mark Warner is calling out the hypocrisy of America’s blank check for President Donald Trump’s war in Iran and penny pinching when it comes to health care or fighting hunger. 

By one tally, the war has already cost over $5 billion. 

Below, I take a look at the debate over Virginia’s tax exemption for data centers. 

And I raise a glass to a Fredericksburg distillery.

High-voltage transmission lines provide electricity to data centers in Ashburn in Loudon County, Virginia, on Sunday, July 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

As this year’s legislative session gets closer to the finish line, the race is on in the General Assembly to decide if the hundreds of data centers in Virginia should pay more taxes. 

The Virginia Senate passed a budget bill that would end the state’s data center sales & use tax exemption. The exemption began in 2010 as a way to attract data centers to Virginia and was expected to cost the state around $1 million a year. 

Instead, data center companies save about $1 billion a year as an AI boom fuels their construction and strains the power grid. Senate Democrats want to end the tax exemption and use the money to help fund things like education and public transportation. 

But the budget bill that the House of Delegates passed keeps the data center tax exemption intact. And local labor unions whose members have seen more work with the state’s data center construction boom also support leaving the tax exemption in place. 

Critics of the effort to end the exemption worry about data center owners choosing to invest in other states, but it’s hard to imagine that happening in such a way that really diminishes Virginia’s attractiveness to data centers. 

Data centers go wherever they have the best infrastructure and workforces to support them. 

The data center company Equinix doesn’t even mention taxes in its list of top things to consider when picking a data center location. Rather it says key factors include Internet infrastructure, the presence of other data centers, and a stable, renewable energy grid. 

Remember when Amazon held a national sweepstakes in 2017 to see where it should locate a new headquarters?

States and localities bent over backwards to woo the tech giant, offering up massive tax incentives and giveaways. But in the end, Amazon chose places not with the best deals, but with the best infrastructure and workforce: Arlington and NYC. (Every day New Yorkers angry over the billions in government incentives ultimately chased Amazon away). 

Ultimately, society should not have to choose between good union jobs and making data centers pay their fair share. 

• The Economic Policy Institute lays out the case for why home care workers and higher education workers should be included in Virginia’s potential expansion of public sector collective bargaining rights.

• On Wednesday, home care workers and campus workers held a press conference in Richmond to rally around their cause, Joe Dodson at Courthouse News Service reports. 

• Two Virginia university professors published an op-ed with the Richmond Times-Dispatch about their need for collective bargaining rights. 

Democrat Jay Jones speaks on stage at an election night watch party for Democrat Abigail Spanberger after Jones was declared the winner of the Virginia attorney general’s race Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Richmond, Va. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Attorney General Jay Jones today joined a coalition of other attorneys general suing to stop Trump’s new effort to impose tariffs after the US Supreme Court ruled against certain tariffs he imposed last year. 

“These illegal tariffs are nothing more than a tax on Virginia families and when a President tries to impose them without legal authority, it is our responsibility to step in and defend the rule of law,” Jones said in a statement. 

Jones’ office noted in a release that researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found most of the costs of tariffs imposed in 2025 were paid by Americans, not foreign governments.

“This year, tariffs are projected to impact Virginia’s economy by increasing household costs by $400-$3,000 annually, raising unemployment by 0.3 percentage points, and destabilizing our manufacturing industry,” the release said. 

 An un-neglected bottle of A. Smith Bowman bourbon. (Dennis Thompson)

For anyone looking for a recommendation the next time they are at an ABC store, why not give A. Smith Bowman a try. 

This small Fredericksburg distillery is gaining a good reputation in the world of spirits and in my family group chat. 

Here’s what my dad had to say about A. Smith Bowman’s single barrel bourbon: “It’s pretty darn good and very reasonably priced.”

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