00:00.70

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I am Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia Elections. This is a special extra interview that we’ll be doing with John McAuliffe. He is the Democratic nominee in the 30th House District in House Delegates District in Western Loudoun and Western Fauquier County, and it is one of the top battlegrounds in Virginia.

00:20.12

Sam Shirazi

The current Republican incumbent is Delegate Gary Higgins. I’m happy to have him on at a different time if he would like to come on the podcast. But today we have John. Thank you for joining me.

00:30.51

John M

Yeah, I’m so thrilled to be here. Thank you for everything you do. And and yes, it is an exciting year to say the least.

00:36.65

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, so so before we get into it, I did want to say, you know, honestly, just in terms of places I like to visit, the 30th District is one of my favorite districts in Virginia, just a really beautiful part of Virginia and Western Loudou and Western Fauquier.

00:49.93

Sam Shirazi

lot of beautiful scenery, especially this time of the year with the leaves changing. So if anyone wants to make the trip out there, I really encourage them to do that. So in terms of the race, John, what made you want to run for office?

01:03.67

John M

Yeah, absolutely. I decided to do this just about 10 months ago. I left the the Biden administration after after three and a half years there, where I had the privilege of working for Department of Agriculture, where it was my job to help farmers get access to renewable energy.

01:21.22

John M

That could look like solar panels on the roof. That could look like a small turbine. That could look like geothermal or a biodigester. Whatever they needed, we would get them a grant to to help them put that on the farm because that is their biggest bill in many cases and and the one that’s going to happen every single year no matter how good the harvest is.

01:40.52

John M

right You still have to pay your energy bills. So I decided to do this because I realized that the biggest energy crisis in the country is actually right here in my backyard. We have Loudoun County has 200 data centers.

01:53.09

John M

There’s another hundred coming online. And this is a place where the impact of that is being felt by every single person. And so I realized that I could use everything I’ve learned and a apply it right here at home, where I have my small business, a little bed and breakfast over in Warrington, and where I have lots of nonprofit boards I’ve been on and things like that, that that I felt like I really understood my community really well.

02:16.39

John M

and So that’s why I decided to do this.

02:18.26

Sam Shirazi

Well, you know, that that’s all very interesting. I will get to data centers because I know it’s a big issue in your district. I did want to talk about the first thing you mentioned. So used to work for the federal government. Obviously, as of the ti the time of the taping of this podcast, there is still a government shutdown going on, and it seems unlikely it’s going to end anytime soon.

02:35.57

Sam Shirazi

What has been the impact of the government shutdown in your district?

02:39.62

John M

Yeah, honestly, Sam, it’s been heartbreaking. i have never run for office before. I have certainly never run for office during a shutdown before. Back in in the administration, we had to prepare for one, but it never ended up happening.

02:53.72

John M

This has been very different experience because every day I’ve been knocking doors in communities where folks are federal employees, federal contractors, two income families are now one income families.

03:03.95

John M

two income families or sometimes zero income families. And that doesn’t stop the bills. And so people are going to pick which bills to pay, right? Whether it’s tuition or taxes or energy bills, folks are having to make really hard decisions, taking out loans, trying to figure out how long this is going to last.

03:24.42

John M

And quite frankly, it’s horrifying. Like we are, it is embarrassing that Washington cannot make the most basic decisions to keep the government open.

03:38.41

John M

And i think people are angry that Republicans are playing politics with their livelihoods just to stop us from having health care tax credits that we’ve all signed up for.

03:49.70

John M

And it’s it’s going to be a really, really big impact, regardless of what happens, whether it the government reopens without those tax credits or whether it it reopens with them. you know, folks are folks are really, really feeling this impact.

04:04.18

Sam Shirazi

And kind of related to that, there’s kind of the separate issue of the federal firings. Obviously, that was a big deal in the beginning of the year with Doge. That kind of died down a little bit. Now it seems to be coming back with the shutdown.

04:16.80

Sam Shirazi

Can you talk about some of the impact of the federal fire firings in your district?

04:20.54

John M

Yeah, I mean, we’ve we’ve had a lot of folks who have lost their jobs and who have chosen to leave either as part of the rifts or just because they had reached retirement.

04:31.19

John M

HD30 is sort of the outer edge of sort of the company town that is Washington, right? So once you go past Leesburg, you are out in beautiful, beautiful country.

04:43.15

John M

We have dozens and dozens of wineries, breweries, farm visits, agritourism at its finest. And we really rely on all the visitors from Arlington, Fairfax, Washington, and then Maryland to be able to come out here.

04:59.74

John M

And those folks are currently worried about their mortgage and their rent and their tuition payments. And they’re not really worried about where they’re going on the weekend. So that impacts our economy directly.

05:10.28

John M

And I’ve talked to dozens of businesses this summer who have seen it already. And there was a report that came out this morning that Northern Virginia is zero growth as of right now, zero literally 0.0 in Northern Virginia.

05:25.68

John M

that can’t sustain here. And I don’t think it will. I think we’ve got lots and lots of incredibly talented people. I wanna make sure they stay. There’s a lot we can do with the state government to make that easier.

05:37.44

John M

But I wanna make sure they stay and I wanna make sure we can find roles for them in some of the other extremely lucrative high-tech industries that are here, including renewable energy, where a lot of the folks that built the battery storage systems that we use around the country live right here in Northern Virginia. And a lot of the companies so that have that innovative streak live right here in Northern Virginia. So there’s a lot we can do.

05:58.28

John M

But right now, to be honest with you, Sam, the defining characteristic of every conversation I have on the doors is anxiety. Almost every conversation has that element in it.

06:10.24

John M

And it’s, it’s know hard to be surprised.

06:12.70

Sam Shirazi

Yeah. and And so just to follow up on that, in terms of the anxiety, it anxiety about what’s going on in D.C., anxiety about the state of the country, anxiety about just the political environment? I mean what is it that you’re hearing from the voters?

06:24.04

John M

Anxiety about their own personal lives, right? Not sure where the next paycheck going to come from for folks that are currently furloughed. Not sure where the next job is going to come from for folks that have been riffed or have chosen to leave for any number of reasons.

06:40.46

John M

And not sure what our lives are going to look like here in Northern Virginia. Because it’s one of the least affordable places to live, especially here in Loudoun County, anywhere in the country.

06:51.39

John M

And It’s not a place where folks can go you know months and months without a paycheck or a plan. We have to have the state step up here, right? the The federal government has stepped back from its traditional role in our lives. We have to have the state step up.

07:06.93

John M

And that looks like expanding unemployment insurance. That looks like ensuring we have a livable minimum wage so folks can get gap jobs. They can actually pay their bills. That looks like making sure that either the federal government maintains the health care tax credit or the state fills the gap and and builds that tax credit in. So, I mean, I’m i’m on the exchange because...

07:30.54

John M

Running for office is not a paying job, but I wanted to make sure that that I put everything I had into it. And so I’m doing this full time all year. And you know I don’t take advantage of the tax credit, but a lot of folks do.

07:42.25

John M

And that can take their their monthly costs from a couple of hundred bucks to five or 600, which is unaffordable for a lot of people, which means they’re going to cancel and deal with the deal with the tax penalty.

07:53.78

John M

So there’s a lot we have to do in Richmond next year. It’s going to be a really, really busy session.

07:59.43

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, well, i it sounds like there’s a lot going on in your district in terms of the federal fallout. I did want to shift to a little bit of a different topic, but I know it’s a really important topic in your district, which is data centers.

08:08.42

John M

Sure.

08:12.28

Sam Shirazi

I know a lot of people have probably heard the term. Could you explain kind of what data centers are and why they’re such a big deal in your district?

08:20.29

John M

Yeah, so data centers are are two things. They are the the sort of hub for all of the things we’re doing on our phones and our computers and in the cloud. So I don’t know, maybe a decade ago, all the talk was the cloud, the cloud, the cloud. Well, this is what built all of that infrastructure.

08:38.23

John M

And because so much of the internet traffic in the world runs through Northern Virginia, the data center hub that back in the early 2000s started here has gone completely out of control.

08:51.33

John M

It went from 50 data centers back in 2013. And then in 2014, they passed a new zoning amendment that allowed them by right in five places, five five different zoning districts.

09:02.79

John M

And that has resulted in an expansion of of nearly 200. And now with another 100 in the pipeline, The reason I say data centers are two things is because that’s not really the reason for the explosion. The reason for the explosion is artificial intelligence, right?

09:21.97

John M

There was an article yesterday, Sam Altman, who of course is the is the chairman of OpenAI, And he said that the plan for their company, just their company alone, not AI development at Google and all the other companies that are doing this, would be to put the equivalent of India’s peak load power on the grid by 2027. So we’re talking data centers that are consuming the electricity of up to a million homes per data center.

09:50.99

John M

And Virginia and Loudoun County specifically is the first choice for those companies. And they bring significant revenue when they do that, but they don’t really bring the level of jobs that we would expect from somebody investing that kind of revenue.

10:06.10

John M

So there’s a lot we need to do. And there’s such a big deal because right now in Virginia, all of the energy infrastructure, meaning those transmission lines, those substations that are being used for the data centers are being paid for by the rate payer, meaning you and me.

10:28.43

John M

When we pay our electric bill, we are paying for this infrastructure that is going purely to the profit margins of the world’s biggest companies. This is a basic unfairness that does not need to be this way.

10:42.06

John M

So the first thing we have to do next year is fix that. And I hope the industry will join me in working on this because I think they understand that it also is unfair. They’ll take it if we’ll give it to them, of course. But I think they understand that that they want to be good partners in the community, I hope.

10:57.53

John M

And part of that is paying their own way. And and Abigail Spanberger, who I hope is our next governor, has said she’s going to make sure that they do. and i And I really appreciate that because the places around the data centers are the places most impacted by the cost increases.

11:12.21

John M

And as I mentioned at the top of this podcast, for most farmers and most families, the energy bill is one of the biggest that they pay all year round. And here we’re paying some of the highest.

11:22.97

John M

So there’s a lot we can do. That’s just the start. But this is gonna be a multi-year multiyear arrangement. Next year will be a really great opportunity to do it because the data center tax credit is coming up for review.

11:36.87

John M

And I assume they’d like to do it again, if I had to guess. And this is a a tax credit on the sales

11:44.20

John M

for for the data centers. And I’m sure they’d like to do it again. That was about $900 billion. dollars and with an M 900 million last year, which could give every teacher in Virginia $10,000 raise. So if they’re going to ask for that, they better be prepared to, to give us something in return here.

12:02.84

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I think that’s really helpful background. And I had a specific question about Loudoun because Loudoun is kind of known as like the data center hub of the world.

12:08.17

John M

Yeah.

12:11.78

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, when I’m driving out there, land is really expensive. People want housing. you know Why are there so many data centers in Loudoun? Because I think of places like Southwest Virginia, they need economic development. I’m sure they would be much more willing to have data centers next door. Obviously, the infrastructure is not necessarily there right now, but but why does everyone why do all these data centers want to be in Loudoun and Prince William as opposed to like Southwest Virginia?

12:37.04

John M

Yeah, so so part of it’s the energy infrastructure, excuse me, the internet infrastructure, which was built here in Ashburn. And so because of that sort of initial hub, it became the place that that data centers wanted to build.

12:52.87

John M

It’s also a talent question. We have a huge amount of really, really smart high-tech folks in our industry here. And a lot of that is because of the expansion of the federal government and federal contracting.

13:04.26

John M

in the internet age. So a lot of the really, really bright folks came from around the world and around the country to live here in Loudoun County during that during that big expansion. We’re obviously now in a contraction phase for for the government. but And so we’ve got talent and we’ve got the existing internet infrastructure that they love.

13:22.55

John M

We used to have cheap land as well, which when they started this process, that was appealing. That is obviously no longer the case. And so what they’re doing now is they’re buying single family homes, tearing down entire neighborhoods and putting up data centers because that is cheaper and easier than trying to get large chunks of of land. But that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped trying to get those large chunks of Greenfield.

13:45.43

John M

And, you know, right here in Fauquier County, one of the the members of the board of supervisors sold his family farm to a data center in in Remington for $1,000.

13:55.68

John M

I think over a hundred million dollars, not, not jump change, uh, and has the opportunity, you know, now to also vote on that on the board. So we’re talking about a lot of money here, uh, which makes people make decisions like that.

14:08.96

John M

because they’re going to look to do it wherever they can, but counties can decide, right? Loudon could decide tomorrow. We don’t want any more. I think we’re probably at that point, given how many are still coming online.

14:19.10

John M

I’d like to see the supervisors take that really seriously. Uh, Fauquier could decide that too. Other counties have decided that, towns have decided that, and other counties have said, no, please bring them in. We need that economic development here in our county.

14:33.46

John M

And I think that’s great, right? So folks folks need to be able to make that decision for zoning at the county level. I don’t think I’m changing my opinion on that. What we need to do at the state level is make sure that the utility is correctly regulated in such a way that that Virginians are not paying for the cost of profit for for all these companies.

14:52.74

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I mean, that’s that’s really helpful to have that information on data centers. I did want to ask kind of question about other things you’re hearing on the doorstep, specifically about you know the the nature of your district being kind of suburban exurb. Obviously, there’s a lot of growth coming in from Northern Virginia, and the district is still kind of rural. And I imagine that the residents like that feel of the district. So can you talk about some of the tension where there’s growth coming in versus the traditional rural lifestyle of the district?

15:21.97

John M

Yeah, I mean, you’ve hit right on it. So i I’m proud to be endorsed by Saverall Loudon, which is an organization that’s been around a long time that has been doing their best to preserve through conservation easements and things like that as much of our rural land here as we can. Because what we are is we are the rural part of Northern Virginia.

15:44.80

John M

And as we’ve seen in Loudon, the the Board of Supervisors can decide you know how much of an area is getting used for for new homes and for industrial use.

15:56.43

John M

And when you drive around the eastern part of my district, which is sort of the Aldi area, which is the fastest growing suburb anywhere in Virginia, they’ve done it in such a way that you have subdivisions on subdivisions with huge footprints, right? So large square footage, because that’s what you can sell the house for.

16:14.30

John M

The bigger the square footage, the the more profit you make. Right next to each other. just like suburbs, but with no actual infrastructure, meaning that folks are living there and driving 20 minutes to the grocery store, 20 minutes to a coffee shop, 20 minutes to a gas station, because they weren’t required to do mixed use in those areas, which is just foolish. So those folks obviously don’t have the amenities that that you’d expect somebody to have.

16:43.94

John M

And they also have huge class sizes because of how quickly that area has grown and how quickly the board allowed new subdivisions to be built there. And so those are the kind of problems that they’re having out there. And the rest of our district, which is pretty much quite similar, we have obviously the Falkier side, which is conservation easements are much more common.

17:04.76

John M

And it is significantly less dense than than most of most of the rest of the district. But there’s a common ethos through through all those folks, which is we want to preserve what we have we want to make sure that anything new coming in is reviewed understood and the community has time and the ability to push back if they want to that’s it it’s not it’s not a huge ask to be honest with you it is folks want the ability to have some local control over over what happens in their communities whether that’s data centers or housing developments or hotels or whatever and and just as an example of that when i started my little bed and breakfast 10 years ago

17:43.03

John M

we had a six month permitting process to get a special use permit cost, I think about $30,000 to get that process done. Cause you had to go to the planning commission and the council, then back to the planning commission to do their edits and then back to the council to get final approval.

17:58.29

John M

And you know, if they had too much going on that month, they would skip it and go to the next month. And the problem with what happened in data with data centers in Loudoun County, is that they allowed them by right in all those places, meaning they didn’t have to go through the special use permitting process, they could just build them.

18:13.52

John M

And that’s how they got so close to folks’ homes. Stafford this morning just put a 750-foot setback, which is, I think, the biggest in the in in Virginia now. So they’re allowing them, but but requiring them to be set back from communities pretty significantly. So I think that’s that’s helpful.

18:30.38

John M

Beyond that, I think a lot of folks care a lot about supporting our farmers out there because it’s not just land use, right? It’s not just, i want pretty trees to look at.

18:40.33

John M

The culture that comes with agriculture of farm stands and being able to buy all of your groceries and all of your meats from people you know folks move out here to have that and if you don’t have enough acreage to farm meaning that if you don’t own the farm and you’re a leased farmer which we have many of here and in western loudon and northern faulk here uh the farm i live on leases as well so this is you know, if they don’t have the acres they need to lease, they’re going to go to the West and find places where they can make a profit.

19:15.17

John M

And then you’ll have land and it’ll be an easement, but it’ll be dead quiet. And so folks care a lot about that here. Education is huge because this is such an expensive place. I mean, affordability is is rough across the board.

19:29.63

John M

But because it’s such an and in an an expensive place to live, teachers are commuting from Maryland and West Virginia to teach at Loudoun County Public Schools.

19:40.33

John M

And they’re commuting from Prince William to teach at Fauquier County Public Schools, which means that they’re not, they’re one, they’re on the road probably two hours a day, which is time they’re not spending with the kids. But it also means that they can’t invest in those communities in the same way they’d like to.

19:56.18

John M

So I think that is, you know we’re still in the bottom 25 states in teacher pay. I think that’s something we can we can fix and need to fix in the very near future here. So folks can actually afford to live in the communities they teach.

20:07.69

John M

But the end of the day, i this this election, you know there’s always a lot lot of flack going back and forth, but this election is going to be about the North Virginia economy.

20:17.92

John M

We’ve done a great job since COVID in our small towns because folks discovered them and we’ve done a good job of keeping folks coming in to Main Street.

20:28.18

John M

But we have to make sure that if we’re heading into a period of zero growth or perhaps negative growth in Northern Virginia, then we need to do everything we can to keep that churn on Main Street, meaning that when someone decides to retire or when their business idea didn’t work,

20:42.60

John M

We have to get somebody else in the door because all it takes is a couple of vacancies for a Main Street to start to look dead. And I used to run our Main Street Association. I’ve been endorsed by the National Main Street Alliance for this reason, because I want to make sure that that that we can do as easily as possible for our towns. And I think the right way to do that is a small tax credit.

21:03.06

John M

I think if we’re going to give a giant tax credit to data centers can give a small tax credit to our first time entrepreneurs who want to start businesses because often that first cost, right, that first month’s rent. And I talked to small business owners all the time that do the do the farm market.

21:18.06

John M

Sweet meaning that they you know go to five or six farm markets in a in a week or something like that. They’re looking for their first, you know, physical place to be and their first brick and mortar and having a tax credit to help them pay their first month’s rent, I think would be incredibly helpful.

21:34.84

John M

So I’d love to see something like that. And beyond that, you know, every town’s got its own its own set of issues. I’m sure we could do a whole other podcast on each one. And so our job will be to make sure that folks have access to the resources down in Richmond to help fix their water infrastructure, help fix their, know,

21:53.87

John M

you know, budget gaps, whatever it is that they need to get done to make sure that the folks who live there can thrive.

22:00.76

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, and you you mentioned water as well. I wanted to follow up on that because there’s a lot of talk about data centers and electricity, but I think obviously water is a really important resource as well. What are some of the issues you’re hearing about water in your district?

22:12.94

John M

Yeah, so here in Western Loudoun, we are on a cars formation that is fairly porous. And so the groundwater level has been dropping, depending on where you are, between 10 and 40 feet in the last 20 years, which means that wells are starting to run dry.

22:32.78

John M

And those wells can cost 10, 20, 30 grand to replace. And so as we start to decide what else is going to be built out here, and developers are always you know looking for new opportunities, but we have to understand what impact that’s going to have on all of us.

22:50.19

John M

We can’t just do things without thinking this through now. And what that probably looks like is a state level water management district like they have in Virginia Beach, which would require the state to review large large well uses of more than 300,000 gallons. I think that’s a good way to do this.

23:07.50

John M

I think the county also needs to start taking a a bigger role in thinking about what this looks like, because if you let the groundwater level go too low, The primary users of that are farmers, wineries, breweries, and data centers.

23:23.27

John M

Data centers pull from the Potomac, but of course the Potomac pulls from the groundwater as well. And you start to lose all of those things, not even talking about individual folks having to incur that large expense or perhaps deciding not to incur that large expense and saying, well, I’m gonna retire, move to Florida and and sell my place to someone who’s gonna tear it down and put up a mega a mega mansion or something like that.

23:47.90

John M

You know, this is something that everyone, that will impact everybody in the not too distant future if we don’t take big steps now. And Northern Falkir is part of that same same formation. So we’ve got a lot of work to do.

23:59.28

Sam Shirazi

Well, this has been a lot of really interesting policy discussions about the things impacting your district. I did want to talk about politics a little bit because this is one of the most competitive House of Delegates races this year.

24:11.69

Sam Shirazi

Trump barely won the district in 2024, and you’re obviously trying to win it this year. and What has it been like to run in the district, in a battleground district, in a 50-50 district, and just that experience on the campaign trail?

24:25.14

John M

Yeah, no, it’s it’s been incredible, to be honest. i I’ve been doing this since since the last time it was cold. It’s starting to get cold again. But it’s such an incredible place. And you pointed out the top of the podcast how beautiful it is. It’s a huge district. It’s about 650 square miles.

24:41.69

John M

I drive at least two hours a day every single day. But I get to drive through incredible country and I get to meet incredible people. But the the bottom line is that my family’s been here for hundreds of years. We care a lot about what happens to these communities.

24:58.86

John M

And I have a privilege to be able to to have my name on the ballot. Nothing really prepares you for having, you know, your name and your face splashed all around the district and in all sorts of media and people accuse you of all sorts of things. You know, I didn’t know that the traffic tickets from when I was 18 or I forgot to play replace my headlight or something like that was going to be such a hot topic in the campaign this year. But, you know, I think On the whole, it’s an amazing experience. And we’ve met so many wonderful people.

25:32.73

John M

And I can’t wait to to take my seat in a few months and and start to get down to work.

25:38.88

Sam Shirazi

Well, I did have kind of one final question that I like to ask candidates because i I love going out to the district. If you love wineries, breweries, you know, pumpkin patches that has all that, you know, what is your favorite part of the district or what is something that you would like people to come out and visit in your district?

25:55.60

John M

Yeah, great question. So just yesterday, and folks should do this now if they hear your podcast, because the leaves are incredible at the moment. If you go to the very, very, very edge of the district, right near Bluemont, as you start to get into Clark County, we went yesterday to a great little place called Bear Chase, which has incredible views of the Shenandoah Valley without having to go all the way up Skyline Drive into Shenandoah National Park.

26:24.11

John M

And there’s also a brewery right across the street. And you can basically walk between it. You can walk on the Appalachian Trail for a while. I’ll be honest, the district has dozens of places like this. But this one’s super easy to get to.

26:36.22

John M

And I highly recommend it.

26:38.20

Sam Shirazi

Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the podcast. If people are interested and want to learn more about your campaign, how would they do that?

26:45.19

John M

Yeah, you can go check it out at john4va.com, the number four, john4va.com. And please reach out. goes right to my goes right to my email. so

26:55.36

Sam Shirazi

All right. Well, thanks so much for joining me. This has been Fittable Fallout, and I’ll join you next time.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com