District 29 Special Interest Watch

MANWARING
❤️
DATA CENTERS

Right now Idaho lets billion-dollar tech companies skip paying sales tax on their data centers without an end date.

Legislative Record & Accountability

MANWARING VOTED THREE TIMES TO PROTECT TAX GIVEAWAYS FOR BIG TECH

Since 2022, Rep. Manwaring has voted three separate times to protect Idaho's open-ended tax exemptions for Big Tech data centers — against a rule barring double-dipping (ID 2024 HB 159), against a sunset (ID 2025 HB 315), and against a simple seven-year limit (ID 2025 HB 328).

Even Republicans in the Legislature have tried to fix it: proposing a seven-year limit and a rule against double-dipping on tax breaks. Dustin Manwaring voted against these common-sense reforms.

What does that giveaway cost Idaho? Nobody can tell you. A national study this spring named Idaho one of just 14 states that don't even report how much revenue they lose to data center tax breaks — a violation of standard government accounting rules.

Big Tech First, Pocatello Second.

Pocatello families pay sales tax on every bag of groceries and every box of diapers. Meanwhile, Pocatello schools are struggling for funding and your family's power bill keeps climbing.

Big Tech should pay its fair share into the communities that host it, not skip the bill entirely while we pay more.

Rep. Manwaring thinks you should pay Big Tech’s share.

Grid & Power Rate Impact

Utilities warned him. He didn't listen.

When a data center plugs into the grid, the utility builds new power lines and substations — and those costs show up on household electric bills. Utilities raised exactly that concern in 2024.

Manwaring co-sponsored HB 585 anyway, a bill to extend data center tax breaks to crypto mines and block local communities from setting their own rules for them.
Special Interest Influence

Whose side is he on?

In February 2026, while sponsoring a bill to let Idaho's government use stablecoin, Manwaring attended a conference at Mar-a-Lago where a lobbyist for the Trump family's crypto venture — which sells its own stablecoin — picked up his tab.

Local rate-payers pay for the grid. Corporate lobbyists pay for the trip.
Accountability & Solutions

Mary Shea’s Promise

“Working families in Pocatello should not be forced to pay more so the world's richest corporations can pay less. I’ll make data centers pay their fair share, so you get a fair deal.”

If a data center creates the cost, the data center pays the cost. Mary Shea will fight to put an expiration date on Big Tech's tax break, stop the double-dipping, and make sure grid upgrades for data centers are paid by the companies that need them — not by Pocatello families.

Mary Shea
Mary Shea Candidate for Idaho House 29A
TELL REP. MANWARING: BIG TECH SHOULD PAY THEIR OWN BILLS - CLICK TO VOLUNTEER WITH MY CAMPAIGN