Mike Rogers Backs Michigan Data-Center Moratorium Three Days After The Lever Discloses His AI/Data-Center Holdings

Michigan Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers announced in a written statement on Thursday, August 20, 2026 that he supports a one-year statewide moratorium on new data-center construction “until we establish a fair, transparent approval process that puts local communities first,” adding that “Michigan needs stronger guardrails to protect community control, prevent utility price hikes, protect our water and stop pay-to-play schemes” (The Hill). He specified he does not support a federal ban. The announcement came three days after The Lever’s August 17, 2026 report — independently confirmed by this corpus against the two outlets’ own datelines, and separately computed by Detroit Metro Times as “three days” in its August 28 retrospective — that Rogers and his wife, Kristi Clemens Rogers, held named financial assets disclosed on his Senate candidate filing (filed 07/06/2026, covering the 2025 reporting period) that The Lever characterized as $1.7 million-$2.6 million in “companies positioned to benefit from AI development,” plus $100,001-$250,000 in Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT), a REIT with data centers reported at 29% of its portfolio, up from 1% in 2020. Rogers has not stated a reason for the change in any source reviewed for this entry.

The reversal followed five months of a different public position. In March 2026, endorsing Trump’s “National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence” (federal permitting acceleration for AI infrastructure), Rogers said “the choice is simple: lead the charge or fall behind. Let’s get this done” (Metro Times). Through April-July 2026 he downplayed data-center water-use concerns, compared their consumption favorably to a golf course, and repeatedly proposed directing new data-center property-tax revenue toward residents’ property-tax relief — a sustained framing of data centers as a state economic opportunity to compete for and manage through tax-sharing, not a construction risk. His campaign did not respond to The Lever’s request for comment on the holdings.

The named holdings — Qualys stock (spouse, over $1,000,000), a Now Secure non-public equity award (spouse), Constella Intelligence stock (self), D-Wave Quantum common shares (self), and two ForgePoint Capital cyber-affiliates private-equity funds (self, summing to $150,002-$350,000, a figure independently matching Metro Times’s own separate reporting) — are direct or near-direct stakes in named AI/cybersecurity companies, distinct in kind from the BREIT holding, a diversified REIT allocation rather than a stake in a named data-center developer. The moratorium itself is a state-policy position a U.S. Senator would have no direct vote on; Rogers’s own March federal-permitting endorsement and his August state-pause position are not logically incompatible (different levels of government), though the emphasis shift — from data centers as opportunity to data centers as risk requiring a pause — is undated as to cause. On August 19, the day before the reversal, Axios reported the National Republican Senatorial Committee had privately warned AI/tech companies that data-center backlash was threatening Republican candidates nationally, a structural pressure distinct from and not confirmed as connected to Rogers’s own disclosure. Vice President JD Vance campaigned for Rogers in Sterling Heights, Michigan on August 31, 2026, speaking favorably about data centers at that event; whether his remarks addressed Rogers’s own moratorium position was not established in sources reviewed for this entry.

This sits inside the corpus’s Michigan data-center substrate documented in the-washtenaw-trilogy, the Saline Township Oracle/OpenAI fight (2025-09-01–saline-township-denies-then-sued-into-settlement-datacenter-rezoning, 2026-07-15–saline-township-oracle-openai-caps-then-reverses-tax-abatement), the DTE ratepayer cost-allocation dispute (2026-08-06–nessel-appeal-brief-mpsc-dte-saline-cost-allocation-mechanism), and the Democratic-primary-era data-center wedge issue between El-Sayed and Stevens (michigan-data-center-democratic-primary-wedge-el-sayed-stevens-verification). Full disclosure-document detail, source-by-source dating, and the discipline notes on value-band vs. point-estimate reporting live in the actor profile: rogers-mike-michigan.

Research Gaps

• Exact day-of-month and venue for the March 2026 “lead the charge or fall behind” statement
• Whether Vance’s August 31, 2026 Sterling Heights remarks addressed Rogers’s moratorium position directly
• Blackstone’s own SEC/REIT filings on BREIT’s data-center exposure and the reported Ann Arbor project tie (relied on The Lever’s characterization only)
• Whether the moratorium, if it became binding state policy, would reach already-permitted/under-construction projects (e.g., Saline Township) or only new filings

Related Entries

• rogers-mike-michigan — full actor profile with disclosure detail and dating discipline
• the-washtenaw-trilogy
• michigan-data-center-democratic-primary-wedge-el-sayed-stevens-verification
• 2026-08-04–el-sayed-defeats-stevens-michigan-democratic-senate-primary-record-turnout