DENVER — Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser sued the Trump administration Wednesday to challenge the president’s decision to move U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

At the top of his list of reasons for taking the legal action, Weiser said during an online news conference, was President Donald Trump publicly citing Colorado’s mail-in balloting system as a “big factor” in last month’s decision to authorize the relocation of the facility. It will move from Peterson Space Force Base to Redstone Arsenal in Alabama in coming years.

“We are filing this lawsuit today in federal District Court in Denver to challenge a decision to move Space Command as a form of punishment, because Colorado chooses to exercise its authority to have a mail-in voting system,” he said. “This action is unconstitutional because in our Constitution, the executive branch isn’t allowed to punish, retaliate or seek to coerce states who lawfully exercise powers that are reserved to them.”

Those powers held by Colorado, Weiser said, include the authority to “oversee the time, place and manner of elections.” In the lawsuit, he described Colorado’s election system, with its multiple ways for voters to cast their ballots, as the “gold standard” for access and enfranchisement.

Colorado voters favored the Democratic presidential nominees over Trump by 5 percentage points in the 2016 election and by more than 10 percentage points in 2020 and 2024.

Trump announced the relocation of Space Command from the White House on Sept. 2. As part of his remarks, he said: “The problem I have with Colorado … they do mail-in voting, they went to all-mail-in voting, so they have automatically crooked elections. And we can’t have that when a state is for mail-in voting — that means they want dishonest elections, because that’s what that means.”

Within minutes of that announcement, Weiser said his office would file suit to attempt to block it.

The resulting lawsuit, which names Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink as defendants, says the president’s actions illegally encroach on states’ rights.

“The President’s decision to punish Colorado based on Colorado’s lawful exercise of its sovereign authority to regulate elections, and his threats to impose further harmful executive action, violate the Tenth Amendment, the Elections Clause, state sovereignty and separation-of-powers principles,” the lawsuit states.

The suit also accuses the president of violating “statutory requirements mandating detailed processes and public disclosures through the submission of reports to Congress before taking action to relocate a major military headquarters.”

U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank, a Republican who represents Colorado Springs in Congress, showed no support for Weiser’s challenge on Wednesday. That’s despite having signed on to a statement last month — alongside the state’s entire congressional delegation — saying Trump’s decision “will directly harm our state and the nation.”

The lawmakers on Sept. 2 said Space Command was “already fully operational” at Peterson and that the president’s move “sets our space defense apparatus back years, wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, and hands the advantage to the converging threats of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.”

On Wednesday, Crank accused Weiser of pursuing a “politically motivated and novel legal theory that is opposed by almost every leader in our community.”

“I remain focused on productive efforts on fighting for El Paso County and its future as a critical part of our national defense,” Crank said in the email statement.

In Alabama, that state’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, told a local TV station in September that he was ready to fight to keep Space Command in his state if Colorado challenged the president’s decision.

“Bring it on,” Marshall said. “We’re prepared to be able to defend (the move), and I think we’ll win very easily.”

Weiser, during his news conference, said he was taking action now in hopes that a judge would “put a pause” on the decision.

“Our objective here is to make sure that while this lawsuit is pending, no actions happen, and in many of the lawsuits that we filed, that is one of the forms of relief we’ve been able to obtain,” he said of the dozens of lawsuits his office has filed to challenge varying Trump actions.

Weiser, who is running as a Democratic candidate for Colorado governor next year, said the suit filed Wednesday was Colorado’s 41st against the Trump administration since the Republican president took office for a second term in January.

The permanent location of Space Command headquarters — which is responsible for the nation’s military operations in outer space — has been a political hot potato since the end of Trump’s first administration. His successor, Democrat Joe Biden, opted not to act on Trump’s initiation of a move to Huntsville, citing the potential disruptions to Space Command.

The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce estimates that Space Command supports nearly 1,400 direct jobs and has a $1 billion impact on the Colorado Springs economy. The state has a significant Space Force presence, hosting half the bases with its major operations, including Peterson as well as Schriever Space Force Base in the Colorado Springs area and Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora.

Space Command’s functions include conducting operations like enabling satellite-based navigation and troop communication and providing warning of missile launches.

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