Episode Five:  The Land

Kansas is measured in sections, 640 acres to a section, 6,336 sections in a county, 105 counties, 44,800,000 acres of farmland, 85.6% of the state. That is what is at stake.

For four episodes this investigative series has followed one bill, Senate Bill 98, that gave a 20 year sales tax exemption to hyperscale data centers, written by a national lobby, delivered by nine lieutenants.

This is the closing argument, not about the bill, but about the ground it is aimed at, and the choice that is still yours.

Senate Bill 98 is only half of it. Kansas cities and counties can issue industrial revenue bonds under Kansas Statute 79-201a. Property financed through an IRB is exempt from property tax for up to ten years, up to 100% applied to one project.

In DeSoto, KS part of Johnson County, developer Beale Infrastructure headquartered out of California, a large technology company, contracted via a long term lease, was issued $50 billion in authorized Industrial Revenue bonds. They received a ten year property tax abatement on each of the four buildings, plus the 20 year Senate Bill 98 sales tax exemption on everything the campus is built out of. The project, as approved, 1.14 million square feet.

The project, as it grew after approval, increased to nearly 2.9 million square feet, two and a half times larger. And the post audit report, from July 2026, shows Kansas issued $18.3 billion in industrial revenue bonds between 2010 and 2024, approximately $1.1 billion in property taxes never collected. 40% of that would have gone to schools. Cost benefit analyzes off by up to 6,000%, 112 applications never sent to the Board of Tax Appeals.

The architect of Senate Bill 98, at that post audit hearing on the record…

“If they’re just taking away the opportunity for schools to collect property tax that affects all of us, 40% of what this costs comes out of your children’s schools.”

55,734 Kansas farms down 5% in five years. Average producer age 58.2. Only 1 in 10 under 35.

A generation of Kansas landowners is entering the years when land changes hands. That is the window in which 9,000 acre assemblages get made. Kansas Right to Farm Act protects farmers from being sued for dust and noise. It does not stop rezoning. It does not stop annexation. It does not stop a conditional use permit on the ground next door.

Kansas has a right to farm. Kansas legislators, lobbyists, developers, do not have a right to take our farm land.

Loudoun County, Virginia, the end state made visible. Data centers now supply nearly half of Loudon’s property tax revenue, $41 billion of assessed value on the rolls. Energy load from one gigawatt in 2018 to over five gigawatts in 2025. Nearly a quarter of Dominion Energy’s entire Virginia load

Loudoun’s Board of Supervisors, on the record…

“The Board of Supervisors does not have the legal authority to implement a moratorium on new data center applications. By the time a county learns what it cannot do, the ground is gone.”

Zimmerman vs. Wabaunsee County, 2009, a Kansas county banned an entire energy industry across roughly 800 square miles on rural character grounds. The Kansas Supreme Court upheld it, unanimously.

Every Kansas county has that same authority. Not every Kansas county has the same will. Loudon is what Kansas loses if nothing changes.

Zimmerman vs. Wabaunsee County, is what Kansas still has. If it acts.

NetChoice writes the language. The legislature passes it, Commerce administers it. The utility signs the ten year contract. Not one step is voter facing. Not one step requires the consent of a single Kansas landowner.

Every campaign contribution is filed with the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. Every hospitality receipt is filed with the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. Every lobbyist retainer is filed with the Kansas Secretary of State. Every committee vote is printed in the Kansas Legislative Journal. Every step of this machine is on the public record.

It survives only because Kansans are not looking.

The nine lieutenants are on two year terms. Their next primaries begin in the summer of 2026 and 2027. They will ask Kansans for another two years. Ask them first. Who wrote the bill you carried? Whose water? Whose ground? Whose schools? If they cannot answer, they are asking for the wrong thing.

Every step of this machine ends at a name. Every name is on a ballot. Every ballot is yours.

44,800,000 acres of farmland. Five generations of Kansans have worked it. Every contribution in this investigative series is legal. Every abatement is legal. Every vote is on the journal. That is the problem.

The people who did this are still in office. The lobby that wrote it is still in Topeka. The agency that administers it is still funded.

Nothing about that changes without you.

Sovereign soil, enduring heritage. Your ballot, your vote matters, Stand for the Land!

This is the final episode of a five part investigation. We are going to name the players, the lobbyists, the politicians, the out-of-state money. Because Kansas did not lose its water, its land, its power grid and its property tax base by accident. It lost these things in a single afternoon behind a Gut and Go legislative hat trick.