Doug Jones talks data centers, Medicaid in Huntsville

Catch up quick: The town hall saw Jones take questions from randomly selected people in the standing room-only crowd that packed into the Stone Event Center at Campus No. 805.

• It's part of a series of town halls he's holding across Alabama.

Zoom in: The event spotlighted issues Huntsvillians and Alabamians are mulling over as they eye November's ballot: health care, data centers, education and more.

• Jones sat down with Axios ahead of the town hall to lay out where he stands.

💻 Data centers

Tuberville made headlines recently for his support of data centers, telling the Alabama Sheriff's Association earlier this month that criticisms over issues like noise and climate impacts are "bull crap" that's "coming from China," per WBRC.

• Jones said the biggest issue surrounding data centers is transparency, and told the crowd Wednesday night that the state needs a six-month to one-year moratorium to put some guardrails in place, as well as ethics laws to disclose if decision-makers benefit financially from their construction.
• "He's [Tuberville] not wrong about the technology ...," Jones told Axios. "Where he is wrong is simply his approach to say, 'By God, we're going to do them regardless of what your community thinks.'"

🏥 Expanding Medicaid

Expanding Medicaid is a major goal for Jones, who told Axios "it's going to take a champion," and that the expansion will "bring in a lot of money into this state" and help keep rural hospitals open.

• "We are paying a ton of Medicaid dollars into the federal government that's going to support hospitals in other states," Jones said during the town hall. "We need those dollars coming back."

📚 Education

"Education is a complicated issue in Alabama because the way it's funded; it's a hodgepodge," Jones said.

• He said the recently passed Literacy Act and Numeracy Act need more funding, "and you can't put more money in those if you've got the CHOOSE Act."
• The CHOOSE Act creates savings accounts using refundable income tax credits to help pay for tuition and other fees for participating K-12 schools.
• Jones aims to phase out the program, which he said is "taking money out of local schools and putting it into schools that don't have any accountability to the state ... not that they're bad schools, but we don't know where that money's going."

📈 Managing growth

Asked how Alabama can ensure the next generation doesn't get priced out of the Rocket City, Jones, whose son lives in Huntsville, said the first thing is taking advantage of the recently passed housing affordability bill Tuberville voted against.

• He also noted his support for Space Command's relocation to Huntsville while he was in the Senate, saying when he left office it was still set to come to Redstone Arsenal, "so don't let anybody take credit for bringing it back."

🔵 How to win

Jones has won a statewide race as a Democrat in Alabama before. And lost.

• "It took the perfect storm in 2017," he told Axios of his election to the Senate. "It also took a special election, but this time is a lot different."
• With those two elections under his belt, he's eyeing recent trends that show Alabama is less red than people think, like Madison County turning out more Democratic votes than Republican in the primaries this year.

"I think every so often a state goes through a cycle where voters just say, 'You know what, this ain't working out that great, and we're ready for a change,'" Jones told Axios. "That's what we're providing for them this time."