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SAN MARCOS (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – San Marcos has become the first Texas city to ban data centers within city limits, banking on its local authority to stop the data center boom and setting a precedent for other municipalities to follow.

San Marcos City Council voted 4-3 on June 16 to define data centers and make them ineligible for any part of the city in its zoning laws, citing concerns that these developments would funnel water and energy resources from the local community.

The city has no data center projects proposed within its limits, although the threat has reached its borders where at least two data centers have been proposed in surrounding unincorporated parts of Hays County, according to Data Center Map, an industry research tool. Powerless to leverage any of their laws to outright ban data centers, Hays County commissioners recently passed a mostly symbolic resolution to pause data center development over severe water scarcity but the resolution isn’t legally binding.

San Marcos is testing a novel approach to outright ban data centers by exerting its home rule powers, which gives certain bigger cities — 352 of them across the state — the right to create their own zoning codes and control development, land law experts say. Compared to counties and cities without home rule powers or zoning authority, municipalities like San Marcos have a better chance at surviving legal challenges to their data center bans because of their expanded powers, experts say.

Some counties have tried testing their authority to restrict data centers but have failed. Early June, Hill County rescinded its data center moratorium after a developer sued the county for $100 million. Hood County commissioners also tried to pass a moratorium, but pulled it after state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who leads the Senate Committee on Local Government, asked for an attorney general opinion on whether counties have the right to enact such restrictions.

Similar to what he did with Hood County, Bettencourt told The Texas Tribune he plans to challenge San Marcos’ ban, arguing that it violates 2025’s House Bill 2559, which restricts the ability of municipalities to issue indefinite moratoriums on certain types of property developments and the state’s 2023 Death Star Law, which restricts municipalities from enacting local law that contradicts state law.

“They should not use zoning to ban anything everywhere in the city, because that’s not lawful under the state of Texas guidelines,” Bettencourt said. “[A ban] doesn’t work here, and this will get challenged.”

Texas is on track to become the top data center market in the U.S but a majority of Texans oppose the construction of data centers in their community, citing concerns over water usage, energy demand, and noise pollution. The issue has become bipartisan, drawing calls for regulation from Gov. Greg Abbott who recently wrote a letter to state regulators outlining proposals for data centers such as eliminating state sales tax exemptions for data centers.

While San Marcos is the first in Texas to ban data centers, local officials elsewhere are using whatever authority they have to restrict the rapidly growing industry without drawing the ire of the state government. Other home-rule cities are amending their land development code to restrict data centers. Cities and counties are also including restrictions in incentive agreements they enter into with developers.

“You’re seeing a lot of cities in the age of preemption being creative about things,” said Amanda Rodriguez, a San Marcos city council member.

Multiple cities interested in passing their own bans have reached out to San Marcos to see how the city will survive legal challenges from state lawmakers and private citizens who can also sue the city over its ban.

“All cities are watching what happens to San Marcos,” said Taylor Burge, a council member for Lockhart.
Threats to local control

In February, residents packed San Marcos’ City Hall and aired concerns about how a proposed 200-acre development by Highlander SM One LLC, a Fort Worth-based developer, could consume more than 25 million gallons of water annually from local aquifers. The council ultimately rejected the developer’s request to annex into the city.

Rodriguez first proposed the ban at the end of March, but fellow council members rejected it because of how restrictive it was. It received a new life when council member Lorenzo Gonzalez — who originally rejected the change — moved to reconsider it, seconded by council member Alyssa Garza.

“I think we debated this to death,” Gonzalez said in the council hearing. “The promised benefits remained speculative while many of the concerns raised by residents remained unresolved.”

The city’s ban works by defining data centers in the city’s land development code and setting restrictions on this type of future development, effectively making data centers impossible to build in the city.

“I don’t see how any business minded developer would want to reapproach, hoping they’ll read the room,” Garza said.

In response to San Marcos’ ban, Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the industry association, the Data Center Coalition, said the ban signals that San Marcos is “closed for business.”

“A local moratorium on data centers discourages further investment, both from the data center industry and other advanced industries,” Diorio said.

Land use experts and city council members believe San Marcos has a better shot at passing a ban because cities have more power in regulating land use than counties. Nearly half of the 248 data centers that are planned for development in Texas will be built in unincorporated areas.

Although land use bans are uncommon, “theoretically, I think the courts could uphold it,” said Robert Paterson, a University of Texas at Austin professor who specializes in land use and environmental planning. As long as the ban aligns with a city’s comprehensive plan — a long-range policy document which governs the protection of public health, safety, and general welfare — it falls within the city’s power.

But, the 2023 Death Star law complicates city authority. The Death Star law “theoretically pulled back home rule authority,” said Paterson, adding that it bars cities from exercising powers more stringent than those the state itself uses. Republicans and business groups argued that the Death Star was needed to undo a “patchwork” of progressive local policies that made it difficult to do business in cities and it remains unclear what local regulations are out-of-bounds under the law.

Paterson said the law has “a chilling effect on our ability to do our police power, protect the public health and safety,” which is one reason cities are being cautious now.

Bettencourt said a ban on any development has never been upheld in court and he is confident that the state will make San Marcos reverse its ban if a developer doesn’t file a private lawsuit first.

“If you overuse existing legal principles, eventually they get challenged, and/or … laws are changed to make it clear that this can’t happen,” Bettencourt said.

He also says San Marcos is violating HB 2559 that states that property development moratoriums can last no longer than 180 days, and according to Bettencourt, this would apply to San Marcos’ “de facto ban.” However, land experts said that this law would not apply to San Marcos because the city changed its zoning laws to ban data centers, and did not issue a moratorium.

While Bettencourt is among the Republican camp that support data centers, San Marcos’ state senator Judith Zaffirini, a Democrat, says the city’s decision reflects concerns that many communities across Texas share and that the City Council acted “decisively and appropriately” to ensure the safety of the community.

“Anytime you’re operating in the state of Texas and you’re wanting to do something that goes against the grain, there’s always that thought in the back of your head,” Rodriguez said about legal pushback to the ban.

In response to Bettencourt’s plans, Rodriguez said San Marcos’ ban is different from Hood County’s proposed moratorium, which Bettencourt contested using HB 2559. Council members said the Death Star law has yet to be tested in court and they’re willing to try.

“If they want to make this the precedent case for the bill, they’re gonna have to explain why this is the priority and not addressing the problem [data centers] at hand,” Rodriguez said.
What other municipalities are doing

Bans aren’t the only way to stop data centers. Smaller cities like Lockhart and Kerrville have adopted strict zoning rules that make it difficult for data centers to build, hoping the effect will feel like a ban without immediately triggering legal challenges. Cities that don’t have authority to approve development and counties are exploring other tools to signal or impose restrictions, including through resolutions and tax abatement agreements.

“I think the smartest cities in Texas are already doing this, but they’re doing it in such a way that is not going to raise the hackles of the state Legislature,” Paterson said.

Local lawmakers like Burge are communicating with other city and county officials to figure out what they are permitted to do to stop development in their communities. “This is a big game of telephone,” Burge said.

To pre-empt legal action, Lockhart and Kerrville have instituted regulations in hopes of banning data centers without having to technically ban them. They worry that outright bans would leave them open to lawsuits they do not have the resources to fight, said Burge.

In May, Lockhart City Council moved to define data centers in its zoning codes. The council limited data centers to one land-use category — heavy industry — confining such development to two areas in the city.

In addition to zoning restrictions, Burge also said they want to implement restrictions through special use permits, which add another layer of requirements for developers to meet before they are allowed to build. She hopes the “intense filtration” provided by a permit will have the same effect as a ban.

Like Lockhart, Kerrville City Council updated its zoning code to restrict — but not outright ban — where developers can build data centers. The council also added water capacity approvals, requiring developers to disclose cooling systems and water usage amounts. “My experience is that an outright ban usually ends up more contested,” said Drew Paxton, Kerrville’s director of planning and development.

For municipalities without zoning, like Alvin, they have passed resolutions declaring they don’t want data centers within their city limits. While these resolutions cannot produce anything actionable and are more symbolic, local officials hope state legislators will empower localities like them with more protections, said Dixie Roberts, Alvin’s assistant city manager.

“Resolutions do not have a lot of meat to it,” said Roberts, but the hope is “to get the word out that the council is not interested in this kind of development.”

Still, cities that are using other ways to restrict data centers instead of ban are not completely ruling out that a developer or the state will thwart their decisions.

“We know the state’s going to keep working on this [data center policies]. We don’t know which direction the state’s going to go, but let’s go ahead and get something in place in case we get a request,” said Kerrville’s Paxton.

Another way for cities and even counties to exert some control over data centers are in their incentive programs, such as Chapter 380, Chapter 381 and Chapter 312 agreements. For example, a city could offer a reduction in their property tax bill and in return, require additional development standards.

“This is a tool that counties could maybe use in this period of time when they don’t necessarily have a good amount of development authority,” said Kayla Landeros, a land law professor at Baylor University and a former Temple city attorney.

State lawmakers will likely decide whether to give counties more authority or strip cities of the power to make these kinds of bans, in the next legislative session, depending on what the general reaction is from constituents, said Landeros. San Marcos’ ban will be the first test of which direction state legislators will take.

“Local officials are in the best position to understand the unique needs, infrastructure constraints and priorities of their communities,” Zaffirini said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday erased limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and president, striking down a federal election law that is more than 50 years old.

Prodded by a Republican-led lawsuit that includes Vice President JD Vance, the court’s conservative justices were again in the majority of the latest decision that upended congressionally enacted limits on raising and spending money to influence elections. The court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the door to unlimited independent spending in federal elections.

The limits on party spending stem from a desire to prevent large donors from skirting caps on individual contributions to a candidate by directing unlimited sums to the party, with the understanding that the money will be spent on behalf of the candidate.

The Supreme Court had previously upheld the limits, in 2001.

The Republican committees for House and Senate candidates filed the lawsuit in Ohio in 2022, joined by Vance, then a senator from Ohio, and then-Rep. Steve Chabot.

After President Donald Trump took office for his second term, the Federal Election Commission dropped its defense of the law and joined with Republicans in urging that it be overturned.

Democrats had called on the court to uphold the law, even though there is wide agreement that the spending limits have hurt political parties in an era of unlimited spending by other organizations.

Last year, the coordinated party spending for Senate races ranged from $127,200 in several states with small populations to nearly $4 million in California, the most populous state. For House races, the limits were $127,200 in states with only one representative and $63,600 everywhere else.

Entrenched divisions between liberal and conservative justices over campaign finance restrictions were on display when the court heard arguments in December.

“Every time we interfere with the congressional design, we make matters worse,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a dissenter in Citizens United and the court’s other campaign money cases.

By contrast, Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the Citizens United majority, described the decision as “much maligned, I think unfairly maligned.” The effect of the decision was to ”level the playing field,” Alito said, by expanding the right to spend freely that had previously belonged only to media companies.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a broad conception of birthright citizenship, rejecting President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

The justices relied on a long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, and more recent federal laws in ruling that anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions, is a citizen.

The Republican president’s restrictions had been blocked by several lower courts and had not taken effect anywhere in the U.S.

During arguments in April, both conservative and liberal justices questioned the order’s legality in a momentous case that was magnified by Trump’s unprecedented attendance in the courtroom.

The case framed another test of Trump’s assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court with a conservative majority and a robust view of presidential power that has largely ruled in his favor. In the notable exceptions when the court has not, Trump has responded with starkly personal criticisms of the justices.

The justices ruled on Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions.

The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, is part of his administration’s broad immigration crackdown.

Birthright citizenship was the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.

Trump reacted furiously to the late February tariffs decision, saying he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and calling them unpatriotic.

He also seemed to recognize the court was likely to rule against him on birthright citizenship, too, using his Truth Social platform to criticize “dumb judges and justices” and wealthy pregnant women from China and elsewhere who come to the U.S. to give birth so their newborns will have American citizenship.

Trump’s order would have upended widely held views that the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born in the U.S., excluding only the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

The amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” it reads.

In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down Trump’s executive order as illegal. The decisions have invoked the high court’s 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.

The Trump administration argued that the common view of citizenship is wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.

More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would have been affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.

While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright citizenship restrictions also would have applied to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams, in another setback for transgender people.

The court’s conservative majority, which has repeatedly ruled against transgender Americans in the past year, ruled that state bans in Idaho and West Virginia don’t violate the Constitution or the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

More than two dozen other Republican-led states have adopted bans on female transgender athletes, and the decision seems certain to extend to them as well.

Left unresolved by the outcome are lawsuits challenging state laws and regulations in Connecticut, California and elsewhere that permit transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity.

Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 16-year-old high school sophomore in Bridgeport, West Virginia, has been taking puberty-blocking medication, has publicly identified as a girl since age 8 and has been issued a West Virginia birth certificate recognizing her as female. She is the only transgender person who has sought to compete in girls sports in West Virginia.

Pepper-Jackson has progressed from a back-of-the-pack cross-country runner in middle school to statewide champion in the shot put. She beat the second-place finisher by two feet in last month’s West Virginia championship meet.

In the Idaho case, Lindsay Hecox sued over the state’s first-in-the-nation ban for the chance to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University in Idaho. She didn’t make either squad because “she was too slow,” her lawyer, Kathleen Hartnett, told the court during arguments in January, but she competed in club-level soccer and running.

Prominent women in sports have weighed in on both sides. Tennis champion Martina Navratilova, swimmers Summer Sanders and Donna de Varona and beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings are supporting the state bans. Soccer stars Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn and basketball players Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart back the transgender athletes.

In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled LGBTQ people are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace, finding that “sex plays an unmistakable role” in employers’ decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate.

But last year, the six conservative justices on the nine-member court declined to apply the same sort of analysis when they upheld state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

The states supporting the prohibitions on transgender athletes argued there is no reason to extend the ruling barring workplace discrimination to Title IX.

Idaho’s law, state Solicitor General Alan Hurst said, is “necessary for fair competition because, where sports are concerned, men and women are obviously not the same.”

Lawyers for Pepper-Jackson argued that such distinctions generally make sense but that their client has none of those advantages because of the unique circumstances of her early transition. In Hecox’s case, her lawyers wanted the court to dismiss the case because she had forsworn trying to play on women’s teams.

NCAA president Charlie Baker told Congress in 2024 that he was aware of only 10 transgender athletes out of more than half a million students on college teams. But despite the small numbers, the issue has taken on outsize importance.

Baker’s NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women’s sports after President Donald Trump, a Republican, signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to compete only on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people ages 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.