Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser listens at a roundtable to discuss potential solutions to prevent future hate crimes Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, at the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center in Denver. (Lindsey Toomer/Colorado Newsline)
Since President Donald Trump took office, Colorado has joined several legal actions challenging executive orders and other policies implemented by the new administration.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat who is running for Colorado governor in 2026, joined five lawsuits against the Trump administration so far and filed two amicus briefs in other legal challenges.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
Here is a look at the legal measures Colorado has taken against Trump administration policies since the Jan. 20 inauguration.
Birthright citizenship
On Inauguration Day, Trump issued an executive order to end birthright citizenship in the U.S.
Weiser and a coalition of other attorneys general filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Jan. 21 claiming that action violates 14th Amendment and a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The suit seeks to invalidate the executive order and stop any attempts to implement it.
Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
“The idea that a president could override the Constitution with the stroke of a pen is a flagrant assault on the rule of law and our constitutional republic,” Weiser said in a statement.
Another group of states filed a similar lawsuit, and several immigration and civil rights advocacy groups filed a suit challenging the order as well.
Multiple judges have blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the executive order until the cases challenging it are resolved.
Freeze on federal funds
The Office of Management and Budget issued a sweeping freeze on all federal funding on Jan. 27.
Colorado and over 20 other states filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island on Jan. 28 arguing the freeze is unlawful.
Weiser said in a statement that the action violates the separation of powers and is “causing massive harm” in Colorado, affecting health care, education and public safety.
A Rhode Island judge heard arguments in the case on Friday. Multiple judges have temporarily blocked the funding freeze as litigation plays out, and ordered federal funding continue to be distributed.
DOGE data privacy
Weiser joined a coalition of attorneys general in filing a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Feb. 7 aiming to stop Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing private taxpayer data.
The suit followed news that a team of DOGE employees accessed sensitive Department of Treasury data through its payment infrastructure.
The attorneys general said Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent illegally provided DOGE access to the Department of Treasury’s central payment system and “Americans’ most sensitive personal information, including bank account details and Social Security numbers.”
“The sharing of this sensitive information, reportedly without safeguards on who is receiving access or how they are using this information, risks Coloradans’ privacy, threatens to undermine critical governmental programs, and is taking place without any legal justification,” Weiser said in a statement.
The lawsuit seeks an injunction prohibiting expanded access to Treasury Department systems as well as a declaration that the administration’s actions were unlawful and unconstitutional.
A New York judge extended a temporary order on Feb. 14 blocking DOGE from accessing Department of Treasury systems.
In a separate case filed by another group of Democratic attorneys general, a judge in Washington, D.C., ordered that a restraining order prohibiting DOGE from accessing federal agency data is not warranted.
Defunding medical research
The National Institutes of Health announced on Feb. 7 it would no longer pay research universities and medical schools a previously negotiated percentage for indirect costs. Weiser and 21 other attorneys general filed suit on Feb. 10 alleging those cuts were unlawful.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the suit says the Trump administration’s proposed unilateral 15% reimbursement rate would lead to an inability to facilitate biomedical research. The NIH is the primary source of federal funding for medical research. The attorneys general said the cap violates the Administrative Procedures Act.
According to a news release from Weiser’s office, the move would cut nearly $90 million in research funding across three university campuses in Colorado.
A Massachusetts judge extended a temporary block on the funding caps on Feb. 21.
The Association of American Medical Colleges and the Association of American Universities also filed lawsuits against NIH over the change.
Gender-affirming care
On Feb. 19, Colorado joined Washington, Minnesota and Oregon in a lawsuit challenging a Jan. 28 Trump executive order that threatened the funding of any medical institution that provided gender-affirming care to minors.
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington intends to block federal agencies from enforcing the executive order, which also threatens criminal charges against medical providers who provide gender-affirming care. It argues the executive order violates the equal protection guaranteed by the 5th Amendment by singling out transgender individuals for mistreatment and discrimination.
Colorado hospitals that provided gender-affirming care to minors abruptly canceled scheduled appointments for transgender children, citing the order and the potential consequences for their funding.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the order and said it “blatantly discriminated against trans youth,” according to a news release from Weiser’s office.
Support for other legal actions
Weiser and other state attorneys general filed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit several unions representing federal workers filed challenging Trump’s “Fork in the Road” buyout offer. The unions argue the offer caused widespread confusion among federal employees and sought a temporary restraining order to stop the program.
Weiser also joined an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit looking to protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Trump administration directed the bureau, an independent agency that oversees banks, lenders and credit card companies, to stop all work and not to take on any new cases on Feb. 9.
Ahead of Trump’s inauguration, a coalition of states including Colorado filed actions defending a decision by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to prohibit a device that allows gun owners the convert a firearm into a military-grade automatic weapon “because federal defendants can no longer be counted on to defend” the prohibition. Weiser also included Colorado in a similar action regarding a bureau rule that expands which gun dealers must conduct a criminal background check for a purchaser and record the transactions.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.