‘Data senator’ ad prompts Frank Farry to send a cease-and-desist letter to his Democratic challenger in Bucks County

A law firm representing State Sen. Frank Farry (R., Bucks) sent a cease-and-desist letter to Democratic challenger Eileen Hartnett Albillar over a “defamatory” data center ad her campaign started airing this month in her bid to unseat Farry.

Shohin H. Vance, an attorney representing Farry’s campaign, demanded Hartnett Albillar’s campaign take down the ad and issue a 30-second retraction advertisement, according to an eight-page letter sent Wednesday and reviewed by The Inquirer.

Harnett Albillar’s ad calls Farry a “data senator” and says he is “the data center industry’s number one fan.” The ad also accuses the Republican lawmaker of voting for data center tax breaks in Harrisburg while his law firm represents NorthPoint, which redeveloped the Keystone Trade Center in Falls Township — the soon to be home of an Amazon data center.

“The Advertisement, which accuses my client of abusing his public office for his own pecuniary interest, is not only misleading — it is demonstrably false,” Vance wrote in the letter.

The dispute signifies how AI data centers have become an almost toxic issue as candidates of both parties work to cater to voters across the political spectrum who broadly oppose such development.

Farry’s seat in Bucks County’s 6th State Senate District is one of a handful of competitive seats being targeted by Democrats in the Philadelphia region in hopes of flipping the state Senate and giving Gov. Josh Shapiro a Democratic trifecta.

Hartnett Albillar’s campaign said Friday there are no plans to stop the ad.

“His temper tantrum won’t silence this campaign or stop Eileen from fighting to make Bucks County more affordable,” campaign manager Leigh Stafford said in a statement.

The Farry campaign, in the letter, rejected the notion that the state senator or any client — including NorthPoint — of his law firm, Begley, Carlin & Mando, benefitted or profited from a vote Farry took in 2021 to support Act 25, which allows computer data center equipment to be exempt from Pa. sales and use tax if it’s being used or sold to a certified data center by a valid owner, operator, or tenant.

“The vote did not, and could not, benefit the client, and none of it put a dollar in Senator Farry’s pocket,” Vance wrote.

Farry was serving in the state House at the time and did not raise a conflict of interest on the floor. When asked about this, he said in a statement: “I didn’t raise a conflict on the House floor in 2021 BECAUSE I DO NOT REPRESENT DATA CENTERS.”

The campaign emphasized in its letter that Begley, Carlin & Mando has not represented a data center operator in at least 20 years.

“To be sure, the Keystone Trade Center is now also the site of a data center, and its developer, NorthPoint, is a client of Begley Carlin. But NorthPoint is not a data center, and the fact that it leases a portion of its 1,800-acre site to a data center operator does not make it one,” Vance wrote of the company, which became a Begley Carlin client in July 2020.

Farry has been of counsel at Begley Carlin for 11 years, but he said in a statement that he has “not done much work at all” for the firm “as my time is filled with being a State Senator, our local volunteer fire chief, a dad to two young kids, and a husband who among other things recently supported my wife through a two year battle with breast cancer.”

Adam C. Bonin, an attorney representing Hartnett Albillar’s campaign, wrote in a response to Vance Friday that “We will neither cease nor desist from engaging in this truthful, accurate speech.”

Bonin in particular highlighted NorthPoint’s close proximity to the Bucks County data center project, including in Falls Township press releases and in news articles. Bonin also argued that the state House bill, which Farry supported, that eventually became Act 25 “made this an attractive deal for NorthPoint and Amazon to make. Without them, perhaps Amazon would have stayed out of Bucks County altogether.”

“While Senator Farry might not like seeing the truth displayed in such an unflattering way, the advertisement’s statements are amply supported by Farry’s legislative record, his law firm’s own website, official Falls Township records and copious news reporting,” Bonin wrote.

This is not the first legal-sparring to happen in a Bucks County race this election cycle. Last month, Democrat Bob Harvie, a county commissioner challenging GOP U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in the 1st Congressional District, filed a defamation lawsuit against a super PAC supporting the Republican. The suit argued that the PAC falsely claimed Harvie was under FBI investigation.

That followed two cease-and-desist letters. One to the PAC and another to the Fitzpatrick campaign.