(The Center Square) – Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser joined 22 other states in filing an amicus brief in support of two lawsuits brought by National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service against the Trump administration.
Those lawsuits seek to block proposed funding cuts to public media, which would affect their organizations and local affiliates or “member stations.”
Weiser is co-leading the coalition of Democratic states supporting the lawsuits.
“Public radio and television connect millions of people in Colorado and across the country to critical information they might not otherwise be able to access,” Weiser said in a statement. “Cuts to public broadcasting won’t just rob us of programming many of us cherish, they will create real danger by reducing our ability to get critical emergency notifications to the public, especially to people in rural and tribal communities.”
On May 1, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and executive branch agencies to end federal funding for NPR and PBS.
The order argued public media is “biased.”
“Today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options. Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence,” the order stated. “At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage. No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies.”
On May 27, NPR and three Colorado public radio stations sued to block the proposed cuts. PBS and a Minnesota-based affiliate filed a separate lawsuit on May 30.
The states’ brief was filed concurrently in both lawsuits. It argues that “public media is a public good” and cutting its funding will harm the American people, especially those in rural or tribal areas.
It specifically highlights how public media is currently used to disseminate emergency information and notifications.
“Many states, including Colorado, rely on public broadcast stations to serve as primary or secondary stations to deliver EAS messages to the public during emergencies,” Weiser’s office said in a statement.
The brief also argued for the role of public media as a “vital supplement to early childhood education.”
Colorado, Minnesota, Arizona and Rhode Island all co-led the brief. They were joined on it by leaders from California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
Colorado has been a critical player in the coalition of Democratic states fighting against the many cuts pushed by the Republican president’s administration, cuts that are motivated by efforts to cut waste and save money. So far, Colorado has joined or filed over 20 lawsuits against the Trump administration, while supporting many others.
“I am proud to stand with my fellow attorneys general to urge the courts to block yet another reckless, illegal action by the Trump administration,” said Weiser, who is running in Colorado’s 2026 governor’s race.
In a separate threat to public media funding, the federal Recissions Package would cut $1.1 billion from public broadcasting. That package narrowly passed the House 214-212 a few weeks ago and has received backlash from Democrats and even a few Republicans. Nevada’s U.S. Rep. Rep. Mark Amodei of Carson City was one of only four Republican members of the House who voted against the Recissions Package, as previously reported by The Center Square.
All four of Colorado’s Republican representatives voted in favor of the package, while the state’s four Democratic representatives voted against it.
Most Republicans applauded the funding cuts in that package.
“The federal government has no business funding media companies,” said U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana. “It’s time to stop picking winners and losers and defund public broadcasting for good.”
