Colorado filed a lawsuit Wednesday to prevent the Trump administration from canceling more than $25 million in grants for public health.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services notified Congress it wouldn’t pay $600 million worth of grants already awarded in Colorado, California, Illinois and Minnesota — all states led by Democratic governors.
The four states have asked a federal court in Illinois’ Northern District to issue an order preventing the federal government from withholding the funds while their lawsuit plays out.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office said the existing grants totaled about $22 million, and the cuts would reduce Colorado’s public health funding in the future by an estimated $4 million.
The funding comes through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and goes toward developing the public health infrastructure and workforce, as well as finding and preventing sexually transmitted infections.
One of the recipients in Colorado that will lose funding is using its $371,000 grant to increase HIV testing around Denver and Colorado Springs, with a focus on gay and bisexual men of color.
The grants go to all states, and the federal government hasn’t explained why it only cut them for four states. An HHS spokesperson said the grants targeted for cuts don’t align with the administration’s priorities.
The suing states argued that the cuts are illegal because they are “arbitrary and capricious,” and meant to punish states with leadership opposed to President Donald Trump.
“The president has repeatedly threatened to cut off federal funds to Colorado for purely political reasons,” Weiser said in a news release. “The abrupt termination of CDC funds would have immediate and irreversible impacts on Colorado’s public health system and critical services for communities across the state.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly cut funding to Colorado: HHS attempted to withhold child care funds, though courts required the money to keep flowing for now; the Department of Energy has laid off more than 200 employees at National Laboratory of the Rockies in Golden; the Federal Emergency Management Agency declined to help fund recovery efforts in parts of the state hit by fires and floods; Space Command’s headquarters is moving from Colorado Springs to Alabama; and Trump vetoed a bill to build a pipeline bringing clean water to the southeast corner of the state.
Much of Trump’s ire toward Colorado is due to the imprisonment of Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk who was found guilty of felonies related to a breach of state election systems. The president said on social media Wednesday that he had not invited Gov. Jared Polis to a dinner with governors because Polis had “unfairly incarcerated” Peters.
Polis has called Peters’ nine-year sentence “harsh” and suggested he’s weighing some form of clemency.
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