The New Jersey Globe is continuing a weekly interview series with state legislators, beginning last week with Luanne Peterpaul. This week, it’s Dave Bailey Jr.’s turn.
Assemblyman Dave Bailey Jr. (D-Woodstown) won election to the Assembly in 2023, flipping a South Jersey seat in the 3rd legislative district.
Bailey is the CEO of Ranch Hope, a nonprofit group founded by his father that, among other services, provides behavior and mental health assistance to children and families in South Jersey. He serves on three committees: Tourism, Gaming, and the Arts (of which he is vice chair); Appropriations; and Telecommunications and Utilities.
He has focused especially on energy policy as utility costs rise and New Jerseyans debate how to handle a proliferation of data centers. On Monday, for example, the Assembly passed a Bailey-sponsored bill that would implement a tariff on 100-megawatt data centers to ensure the public doesn’t subsidize the electric cost of such facilities. He also co-authored a letter to PJM Interconnection, New Jersey’s electric grid operator, demanding that New Jersey’s ratepayers be protected from sharp price increases.
Bailey received 30,737 votes in his first election to the Assembly in 2023, defeating GOP Assemblywoman Bethanne McCarthy Patrick (29,522) and Tom Tedesco (29,480). He won re-election last fall with his Assemblymate, Heather Simmons (D-Glassboro).
A list of Bailey’s floor and committee votes this session can be found by clicking here.
Click here to view a list of bills that Bailey has sponsored.
The following phone interview has been edited for clarity and length.
New Jersey Globe: I want to start with a bill that you sponsored and which cleared the Assembly on Monday, and that you said is designed to make sure that public utility customers aren’t harmed by the sudden energy demands of data centers. So could you walk me through what that bill does and why it’s needed this year?
Dave Bailey Jr.: Everything that I get involved in really comes from community voices and talking to our constituents and talking to my neighbors — and sometimes talking to my 90-year-old mother — about affordability and electric costs. And we’ve certainly seen, over the last 18 months or more, a spike in our electric costs. And it has risen to the top of everyone’s conversations, wherever you are.
I have been serving on the Telecom Utilities Committee now in the Assembly; it’s my second term on the committee, and certainly a paramount issue in that committee as well. We had joint hearings with the Senate, so it allowed me to be privy to a lot of very interesting discussions around the core issues and the role that PJM also played in these issues as well. The discussion started to come around of how forecasting gets done, and how we then begin to look at these rates and for payment of energy. And this new issue of data centers began to hit the forefront across the country and started to impact other states that are members of PJM, and Virginia and Ohio and Illinois.
And we started to see this creep come in our direction, and it started to become a discussion here in New Jersey about the potential of data centers. And so what would that impact look like? We started to research that and have a lot of conversations with national experts, other legislators from other states, large energy users here in New Jersey, and talk about the pros and cons of this issue.
Initially, we talked about data centers, then we went to large-load users, and now we’re back to being more specific and making it focus on data centers. And the reality of data centers is that they not only use a lot of energy, but they require a lot of infrastructure to connect to the grid. So ultimately, you’ve got to decide who is picking up that tab. We’re not anti-data center. We want to be open to data centers coming here as they’re coming to other states, and we believe that they are going to come here to New Jersey.
But if they are, they’re going to the [Board of Public Utilities] to say, well, this is how much energy we’re going to need, and this is the type of infrastructure we’re going to need. That’d be a normal part of the process. All we’re saying — I’ve kind of tongue-in-cheek referred to it as a “prenup” — is if this is what you say you’re going to do, then sign on the dotted line. Tell us that you’re going to commit to this use of energy. If we’re going to build this out for you, then fine, but say that you’re going to be here for at least 10 years. And if you don’t, well, then there are going to be certain tariffs in place. You know, we hate to use that word, but we have lots of different financial requirements in play that say this is what you’re responsible for, because that’s what’s protecting the ratepayer.
Was this an issue that you knew well and had planned to tackle when you first entered office in 2024? The issue seems to have popped up out of nowhere recently.
I gotta tell you, this is not my background, and this was not something that I thought I would be spending almost every hour of every day reading about, and getting calls about, and having my neighbors ask me about. I’ve become Data Center Guy.
I really, really got focused on this issue and have devoted myself to learning about this issue, to listening to people, both pros and cons. There have certainly been people that have helped me write this legislation who didn’t necessarily agree initially or were concerned. And so we had to have some real conversations around the issue and get it right, but also alleviate some of their fears.
Some of the folks I was talking with had fears about what peak load means. Because normally, we pay for the energy that we use over a period of time, it progresses, it’s almost in the aggregate. We start on one day of the month, and in 30 days, we see how many kilowatt hours we use in our home. There’s a formula for that, and that’s what we pay for. That’s not what this bill does. This bill says, what is the amount of energy that you will need at a peak load like right now, real time. And 100 megawatts — not 100 megawatt hours, 100 megawatts — that’s 1/10 of the power that a 1,000-megawatt nuclear facility makes. That’s a lot of power.
You mentioned PJM for a second. Are you hopeful that they’ll be good partners going forward? And what has your work with them been like?
So certainly that’s a major issue because we can’t do this in a vacuum. Here in New Jersey, we are part of a 13-state collaborative that makes up the PJM system. So what we do and what other states do matter, and it affects each of us and how we look at this. So there’s PJM corporate and how they make the rules around the auction. And certainly I have concerns about that. I have concerns about the auction process itself and how its members vote and what each vote is worth, frankly. But that’s a much longer conversation for another time. But certainly, I’ve been thankful and appreciative that other states were coming together, and we’re having conversations, and we’re not looking to do this in a vacuum.
Other legislators, or at the federal level, we hear people make the comment, “Well, they’re going to go to Pennsylvania,” or, “We’re making our rules too tough here.” No, I can tell you confidently, other states are talking with us in New Jersey. They want to make sure that all of us are speaking with one voice, and that’s why we changed it back to data centers, because we started to see what vocabulary needs to be used. There are some states, frankly, that are even lowering it, from 100 megawatts down to 50 megawatts and 25 megawatts.
I think you’ve got one of the more interesting day jobs in the legislature. You’ve led Ranch Hope for about two decades. Could you explain what type of work Ranch Hope does and what your job entails?
Yeah, it certainly brings a very unique perspective, and I’m appreciative of the leadership that has recognized that. So I was born into a family that started a nonprofit over 62 years ago to serve kids and families, and I grew up on the actual campus of this nonprofit. So the kids that we served, the young people that we serve, were my brothers. When you grow up in an environment like that, where you have firsthand knowledge, and you have total buy-in at lunchtime and at dinner time and on the playing fields athletically, it’s not just a job, it’s part of the fabric of who you are.
And so after years of fighting daily as a nonprofit, I fully understand the nonprofit sector as well. I see my counterparts and my peers and my fellow nonprofit leaders coming before the budget hearings and sharing their concerns and their needs. I get it personally, because I know that fight, I know what it’s like to try to make a budget. I know what it’s like to have unfunded mandates through state government laid at your feet, to try to provide services in collaboration with the various departments within state government.
So I’m thankful for Speaker [Craig] Coughlin, and I’m thankful for Majority Leader [Lou] Greenwald, who right from jump street said, “Hey, Dave, we know your expertise in the area of mental health, we know your expertise in the nonprofit sector, but we want to get you on other committees. We know where we can find you when we need your input on these topics, and we appreciate that, but we want you to expand yourself.” Little did I know that I was going to jump right into the energy sector.
From a social service perspective and a clinical mental health perspective, you’ve got to be a good listener. You’ve got to be able to handle difficult situations when anger or people’s thoughts about a certain topic may be misaligned, or they just may need to have further education on a certain topic. So I’m used to these types of discussions and this type of business model. I thought it was just a great training ground for me when, for years, I sat on the other side of the table as an advocate coming and testifying before the legislature.
I’m so thankful also for my mentors and former Senate President Steve Sweeney and now Senator John Burzichelli. They were constant advocates for Ranch Hope and helping us in different situations, and helping me understand how the legislature works and how to advocate properly.
And so while I’m on the other side of the other desk now, it really gives me a strong empathy and understanding for the debate, that just because you have a certain perspective, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right one. You need to listen to people’s testimony and hear them through.
I know these folks, and they know me, and they know who I am, and I’ve stood up for them for so many years in other roles within the community, and so it’s been easy conversations. But I also get those text messages at 10 o’clock at night from people who know me from church or different locations, say, “Hey, we’ve got this pothole issue,” or “We’ve got this situation on the state road. Can you help me with this?” “We’ve got this traffic light issue. Can you help me with this?” And that’s been beautiful, but it has also added a level of responsibility.
Do you think the state is well-positioned to help the youth of the state, like the vulnerable youth who are involved with Ranch Hope?
I’m proud of the state of New Jersey. For years and years, across administrations, frankly, they have always made our kids first, and they’ve always tried to assist them. I’m proud of the fact that the funding that we provide from an educational standpoint, our public school systems, I’m proud of the fact that we have created our own Department of Children and Families here in New Jersey. Is it perfect? No, it’s not been perfect, and sometimes it was under federal oversight. But we have made it a point to make our kids, our families, and mental health a priority here, and so while we’re in some tough budget situations right now, we’ll see how we work through this with the governor, but I am thankful that she made mental health a priority as she looked at her budget.
Your district is seriously competitive; you’re still going to be in a fight for your job. Do you feel like you get enough time and opportunity to legislate effectively when you’re also forced to campaign in such a short timeframe?
Yeah, I certainly wish that we had more than two years, right? Because you get in and you’re learning for a while, but then you’re also right to work and serving the district and making sure that you’re listening to those voices. So it is certainly a very delicate balance of how you do this job. So certainly I wish our terms were a little longer, but that’s for somebody else to take up. The reality is that we have two years, and so time is of the essence, and that’s why it’s certainly important.
If you follow me on social media, or you ask people in the street here in our district of 38 municipalities, do they think that Dave Bailey is working his tail off, they would say yes, because that’s ultimately what is important: we’re taking those voices back to Trenton. Are there topics that come up that are statewide? Certainly. But if you look at my track record of the bills that I’ve brought forward, the legislation I’ve been passionate about — in the area of housing, in the area of working with small businesses around electronic notification. I am extremely proud of my mobile home park bill. That came from knocking on doors in mobile home parks where nobody goes. Nobody goes there, but we went there, and we listened to them, and we gave them a voice, and we created town halls, and they were being taken advantage of by private equity. And so I am so proud of being able to work for those folks who nobody wanted to work with on that front.
Bailey represents Salem County and parts of Gloucester and Cumberland counties in New Jersey’s 3rd legislative district: Alloway, Carneys Point, Clayton, Deerfield, East Greenwich, Elk, Elmer, Elsinboro, Glassboro, Greenwich (Cumberland), Greenwich (Gloucester), Harrison (Gloucester), Hopewell (Cumberland), Logan, Lower Alloways Creek, Mannington, Mantua, National Park, Oldmans, Paulsboro, Penns Grove, Pennsville, Pilesgrove, Pitman, Pittsgrove, Quinton, Salem, Shiloh, South Harrison, Stow Creek, Swedesboro, Upper Deerfield, Upper Pittsgrove, Wenonah, West Deptford, Westville, Woodstown, and Woolwich,