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CfA's November 22, 2024 Newsletter

With your support, Campaign for Accountability is working to expose corruption and hold the powerful accountable.

This Week's Updates:

Unpacking Nancy Mace’s History of Rule Breaking
This week, Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC) introduced a bill that would ban transgender individuals from using the bathrooms consistent with their gender identity on federal property. The bill is an expansion of an initial resolution introduced on Monday, which would impose the same restrictions on Members, officers, and employees of the House. On Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmedthat a similar rule would be enforced in House office buildings and the Capitol complex.

As CfA previously reported, Mace herself appears to have flouted federal law and House ethics rules by soliciting donations on Capitol grounds. In October 2023, Mace appeared on Fox Business in the Capitol Rotunda, where she spoke with host Neil Cavuto about her vote to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. During the broadcast, Rep. Mace asked viewers to donate to her campaign website. In a separate matter, one of Mace’s constituents filed an ethics complaint against the Congresswoman in June, alleging that she exploited a congressional housing reimbursement program to make payments on a property she already owned.

Texas Grid Operator Warns of Power Outages Worsened by Data Centers
Earlier in November, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) released a report warning that the state could face serious power outages this winter, if conditions from 2021 or 2022 reoccur. While ERCOT has taken steps to strengthen its grid, a spokesperson told The Houston Chronicle that power demand from facilities like data centers has made outages more likely. Data centers are used by both crypto currency miners and AI companies, and consume an immense amount of energy to perform computational tasks. In San Antonio, the municipal electricity company CPS Energy has announced that it will be investing $1.3 billion on transmission projects to accommodate new data centers.

In 2022, CfA’s Tech Transparency Project released a report documenting how Texas crpyto mining facilities were making millions of dollars via sweetheart deals with ERCOT, which allowed them to sell energy back to the grid during periods of high demand. Soon after, AI companies began expanding their computing operations, which placed a new burden on grids across the country. In July, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicated it would developing a survey of the crypto currency mining industry’s energy use, though it is not clear if this plan will be carried out under the Trump Administration.

Georgia Dismisses Members of Maternal Mortality Committee
In September, ProPublica reported on the deaths of two pregnant women in Georgia, both of whom were unable to access adequate reproductive care because of the state’s abortion ban. The cases were initially investigated by Georgia’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which is forbidden from sharing its findings with hospitals or the families of women who die in childbirth. Details of the case were eventually shared with ProPublica, in violation of the committee’s rules on confidentiality. The Georgia Department of Public Health was unable to identify a leaker, and has consequently decided to purge all 32 members of the committee. Going forward, the empty seats will be filled through a new application process, and the committee’s entire structure and oversight will be “evaluated for possible modifications” to better ensure confidentiality.

As the committee is reassembled, it’s possible that its investigatory abilities will be curtailed by the appointment of anti-abortion members from fringe medical organizations. Dr. Ingrid Skop, for instance, is the vice president of the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute, a think tank funded by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. In 2021, Skop told members of congress that she believed nine-year-olds should be denied abortions because they were capable of “safely” giving birth. Now, Skop is serving on Texas’s maternal mortality review committee – a playbook that could easily be replicated in Georgia.

What We're Reading
Trans health care under Trump may follow the abortion playbook and its Hyde amendment

Supreme Court allows multibillion-dollar class action to proceed against Meta

Gaetz Campaign’s Reports of Vast Spending on Fees Are Scrutinized

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Be on the lookout for more updates about our work in the upcoming weeks. Thanks again for signing up to be a part of CfA!

Sincerely,

Michelle Kuppersmith
Executive Director, Campaign for Accountability

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