Gov. JB Pritzker said he doesn’t want to see McLean County farmland given up for data centers. He said the state should be pumping the brakes on the industry rather than rolling out the red carpet for it.

"I don’t think specifically that we ought to be giving away or selling off a bunch of farmland for data centers," Pritzker said in an interview with WGLT during a campaign stop Tuesday in Towanda. He added that Illinois has not pursued the massive hyperscale data center campuses that have landed in states such as Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania.

"The number of data centers is, in my view, we’re not going to do hyperscalers," Pritzker said. "We’re not going to have these massive campuses. That’s not something that right now, anyway, is even possible in the state of Illinois."

Hyperscale data centers, such as the Meta facility in DeKalb, have already been built. McLean County passed prohibited data centers from agricultural areas when it adopted zoning regulations for such a facility in June, and Bloomington and Normal are currently in the middle of dual six-month moratoriums pausing all data center proposals.

Pritzker spoke alongside Christian Mitchell, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. The interview came after a barnyard-style McLean County Democratic Party event Tuesday.

Pritzker and Mitchell rallied local Democrats along with state Rep. Sharon Chung from Bloomington and Jeff Hake, a farmer at Funks Grove Heritage Fruits and Grains. It was the last stop for day one of Pritzker’s statewide "Fighting for You" bus tour.

Pritzker said his administration has pushed the legislature to pass the POWER Act that would require data center operators to bring their own energy source, or pay into the state’s energy capacity rather than driving up electric bills for homes and businesses. He’s also pushing for closed-loop water systems so the facilities aren’t drawing down rivers, aquifers or lakes without paying for the water they use.

When lawmakers didn’t move on the bill this spring, Pritzker said he stripped state tax incentives for data centers after the session ended.

"I tried to get the legislature to do this in the spring. They didn’t go for it," Pritzker said. "So at the end, you saw that right after the session — because I told the leaders I was going to do this if they’re not going to pass something — I took away all the tax incentives, the tax credits."

Asked whether the bill needs more work before its next push, Pritzker said some of the provisions may need to be revisited.

"It’s got to be revisited, and we’re talking about it now," Pritzker said. "It’s not perfect by any means, and it’s one of the reasons I was a little bit upset with the legislature that they really didn’t do much with this bill."

Mitchell said transparency also needs to be part of any legislative fix. He said many hyperscalers and other large tech companies sign nondisclosure agreements instead of telling county boards how their facilities are being built.

"Transparency has to be the watch word, because if it isn’t, people can’t make good decisions about what they do or do not want in their communities," Mitchell said.

Pritzker said local communities should ultimately have the final say.

"If you don’t want a data center, you shouldn’t have one," he said.

Estate tax pledge draws cheers

McLean County Democratic Party Chair Patrick Cortesi opened the evening event by pointing to the county party’s rise, including the McLean County Board‘s 2024 swing to a Democratic majority.

"We have changed what people thought was politically possible in McLean County," Cortesi told the crowd, crediting "a lot of hard work and help from a whole lot of people, especially the governor and his team."

Chung, who is running unopposed this cycle, used her remarks to announce that Pritzker has pledged his full support behind her Family Farm Preservation Act that would raise the state’s estate tax exemption for family farms worth up to $6 million and tie it to inflation. The bill stalled in the legislature this spring amid budget constraints.

"The governor did call me a couple of weeks ago to tell me that he was going to put his full-throated support behind this bill," Chung said. "He knows how important the agriculture is to the economy of our state and how important those farm families are for all of us."

Mitchell, addressing farmers directly, argued the trade war prompted by Trump administration tariffs and the war in Iran were driving up input costs and cutting off export markets for Illinois growers.

"Donald Trump has turned his back on you — the very folks who feed this country," Mitchell said. "But JB hasn’t. He never will. And when I become your next lieutenant governor, I promise that I’ll have your back, too." Mitchell also pledged, if elected, to chair a Rural Affairs Council focused on rural broadband, health care access and telemedicine.

Hake credited a $2 million state local food infrastructure grant program — sponsored in part by Chung — for helping his farm expand into grain processing.

"In the state budget, it’s a pittance, but for our farm, we can spread $78,000 around to all kinds of amazing equipment," Hake said. "We can’t afford to make the impact on the food system and on feeding our county and our state the way we’d like to without investments like that."

Pritzker closed the night by announcing Illinois had received its 11th credit rating upgrade under his administration, and by contrasting his agriculture and trade record with Republican opponent Darren Bailey.

"My opponent, Darren Bailey, has called Trump’s war and Trump’s tariffs — and I quote — ‘short-term pain for long-term gain,’" said Pritzker, pointing to more than $5 billion in state-brokered trade deals with Taiwan and Indonesia for corn and soybean exports as evidence of a different approach.