Colleton County officials signed secrecy agreements before residents ever heard about a new project coming to their backyards.
Ralph Norman says the same secrecy is coming for every small town in South Carolina.
His fix traces straight back to the Tenth Amendment, and Darline Graham is not on his side.
The Six Billion Dollar Project Colleton County Kept Under Wraps
Developers want to build an 859 acre data center campus in Colleton County called Project Boulder, and it would be the largest in South Carolina.
The 6 billion dollar project would draw 1,000 megawatts of power, sitting just four miles from the ACE Basin, a 350,000 acre estuary that is home to nine federally endangered species.
Before residents found out any of that, county officials were already bound by non-disclosure agreements with the developers.
Local families learned the size and scope of a 1,000 megawatt project on their doorstep only after the approvals were already lined up.
Republican state Senator Chip Campsen broke with his own party's development instincts and came out against the project, warning that any water use "will pose a great risk to the Ashepoo River system."
State Representative Steven Long has since filed a resolution for a moratorium on new data centers through 2027, because lawmakers in Columbia do not trust these deals any more than the people living next to them do.
This is not an isolated fight.
South Carolina's legislature is currently sitting on multiple bills addressing data centers statewide, including a full Data Center Responsibility Act, because Colleton County will not be the last county blindsided by one of these deals.
Norman Ties the Secrecy Straight Back to the Tenth Amendment
"I'm a supporter of the 10th Amendment, and it's up to the states and communities to take ownership and make the choices that serve them best," Norman said.
That is not a talking point pulled from nowhere.
It is a direct answer to what just happened in Colleton County, where the community got a say only after the developers and the county already had one.
Massive data centers eat enormous amounts of electricity and water, and fights like this one have split rural South Carolina towns for months.
Norman's position is that Washington and Columbia bureaucrats should not be striking these deals behind closed doors while the people living next to the substations and water towers find out last.
Darline Graham has staked out the opposite instinct, campaigning on aggressive data center growth and defending it at the final GOP Senate runoff debate.
She made her case so aggressively that she told the debate crowd South Carolina has 50 million people, nearly ten times the real number.
A commenter watching summed it up bluntly: she looked like she was "guessing at her answers."
Why Graham Cannot Explain Away What Colleton County Already Lived Through
If Graham does not know how many people live in her own state, voters have every reason to ask whether she has actually studied what a 1,000 megawatt data center does to a county that never saw it coming.
Norman has spent his time in Congress building a 100 percent Heritage Action rating and a 98 percent lifetime conservative score, and he is framing this runoff as a choice between someone who understands constitutional limits on power and someone who does not.
Data centers are quietly becoming one of the biggest land use fights in conservative America, and most Washington Republicans have barely noticed.
Every state legislature debating a data center moratorium right now is really debating the same question Colleton County just lived through: who gets to decide, the community, or whoever can get a county official to sign an NDA first.
Norman is betting South Carolina Republicans side with the families who got shut out of that decision.
With the runoff bearing down, that bet is exactly what voters are being asked to settle.
Sources:
- Ralph Norman video statement on data centers and the Tenth Amendment, posted to X, August 18, 2026.
- Project Boulder details, non-disclosure agreements, and moratorium resolution, "New Data Center Developments in South Carolina Are Shrouded in Secrecy, Residents Say," Post and Courier, 2026.
- Senator Chip Campsen quote and project size, "Gigawatt Data Center Proposal Draws Opposition From SC Lowcountry Residents, Politicians," Yahoo News, 2026.
- Darline Graham population comment and debate reaction, "South Carolina GOP Senate Runoff Debate Was Uncomfortable for Darline Graham," The Conservative Treehouse, August 18, 2026.
- Debate takeaways and candidate positioning, "Darline Graham, Ralph Norman tangle in South Carolina GOP Senate debate: Three takeaways," The Hill, August 2026.
- Norman conservative rating and endorsements, "Exclusive Ralph Norman South Carolina Senate Runoff About SAVE Act," Breitbart, August 15, 2026.
- Data center legislation pending in South Carolina, South Carolina Legislature Online, Bill 4583 and Bill 5526, 2025 to 2026 session.
