Sen. Jon Husted says Senate Democrats blocked a widely backed bill to cut electric rates, accusing them of playing politics on affordability.
Ohio Sen. Jon Husted charged that Senate Democrats stopped bipartisan legislation meant to keep data-center power costs off household electric bills, telling Breitbart News the move was pure politics ahead of the November midterms.
In the exclusive interview with Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle, Husted said the Ratepayer Protection Act would have forced large data centers to cover their own electricity generation and grid costs so ordinary ratepayers would not get stuck with the tab. He argued Democrats talked about affordability, then refused to let the measure advance.
The House had already passed the bill by a lopsided bipartisan margin. Husted framed the Senate blockade as a choice to deny Republicans a concrete win on power bills while families face rising costs tied to the AI building boom.
Husted laid out the House vote in plain terms. The chamber cleared the bill 417 to 3, with 206 Democrats joining Republicans. He named House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among those who voted yes, along with the Freedom Caucus.
"This bill passed House 417 to three, 206 Democrats voted for it. Hakeem Jeffries and AOC voted for it. So did the Freedom Caucus. Okay, everybody’s for it,"
Husted said. Then the measure reached the Senate.
Fox News reported the same 417-3 tally and described the bill as the first data-center measure cleared in the 119th Congress. Sponsored by Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) with Democratic co-sponsor Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), it would amend federal utility rules so facilities drawing 100 megawatts or more pay the full cost of generation, transmission, and distribution upgrades and post financial assurances if projects collapse.
Evans said Colorado families and small businesses should not cover new power generation driven by AI growth. Castor said Florida neighbors already face skyrocketing bills and should not subsidize corporate energy demand. The vote put affordability front and center in key races.
That kind of lopsided House result usually signals easy Senate passage. It did not.
Husted said Democrats did not even need to vote yes. They only needed to stop blocking it. Instead, he said, they blocked it.
"Comes back over to the Senate. Democrats don’t even need to vote for it. They just need to not block it. They block it,"
he told Boyle. He added that lawmakers had a chance to cut rates and make data centers accountable, then voted no.
The New York Post reported that Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) objected to fast-tracking the bill one day after the House vote. Heinrich said he and Husted agree AI data centers can raise costs for families, but argued the Ratepayer Protection Act “falls short.” Both that bill and Heinrich’s competing GRID Savings Act remained blocked, leaving the bipartisan House measure in limbo.
Husted’s verdict was blunt. Democrats, he said, preferred politics over rate relief.
"They wanted to play politics. They don’t care about the American people."
He called the underlying issue a “90-10” question with voters and said the Senate action denied Republicans a chance to deliver on affordability before November. Similar partisan fights have repeatedly stalled energy and cost-of-living measures, including when Senate Democrats blocked bipartisan legislation aimed at shielding households from data-center power spikes.
Husted said he developed the Ratepayer Protection Act while working with President Donald Trump roughly six to nine months earlier. The goal was simple: data centers pay for the power and infrastructure they need so local electric rates fall instead of rise.
He cast the fight as part of a larger Ohio story. Manufacturing, he said, is returning under current economic policy. The state added 10,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 18 months across steel, pharmaceuticals, and the chip supply chain, he claimed, and now posts a 3.3 percent unemployment rate with the most jobs in Ohio history.
"We’ve added 10,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 18 months... We now have the lowest unemployment rate, 3.3 percent, and the most jobs in Ohio history."
Those claims sit alongside his campaign against former Sen. Sherrod Brown. Husted accused Brown of backing Green New Deal-era policies that subsidized Chinese solar panels while Ohio hosts First Solar, which he called the largest American-owned solar panel company. Brown, he said, voted to bring in the foreign product.
Trump has appeared twice in the state for Husted, in Dayton and Youngstown, drawing crowds that included Super Bowl-winning coach John Gruden, whom Husted called a former teammate. Senate floor drama over energy and industrial policy has become routine this cycle, much as when Senate Republicans forced a floor fight on data-center power costs after procedural delays.
Husted described early voting as a race of momentum. The first day favored Democrats, he said, but every day since has broken Republican. He argued the party is catching up and can finish the job if voters who turned out last time show up again.
“All we have to do is get the Republicans who voted in the last election to vote in this election, and we will win,” he said. He asked supporters for five minutes a day over the next 17 days: call one person, vote early, and keep the pressure on.
"I’m asking five minutes a day. Call one person a day over the next 17 days... If we do that, we will win,"
The Senate race sits inside a broader midterm fight over who owns the affordability message. Democrats have spent months talking about household costs while, in Husted’s account, shelving a bill that already cleared the House with near-unanimous support. Leadership positioning remains unsettled as well, with figures such as Chuck Schumer signaling he intends to keep his post regardless of November’s outcome.
Other recent Senate showdowns have shown how thin margins and single-member objections can kill bipartisan work, a pattern also visible when the chamber rejected a war powers measure by one vote after party lines cracked. Husted’s point is that power bills are not abstract. When data centers pull massive loads and lawmakers refuse to assign the cost, families pay.
Voters can judge the record for themselves. A 417-3 House bill sat ready. Senate Democrats stopped it. Husted says that choice tells Ohio everything it needs to know about who is serious on rates, and who is not.