Weiser Joins Suit Over Trump Federal Contract Terms and DEI

Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office announced that Colorado joined a coalition of 20 attorneys general suing the Trump administration over new federal contract terms tied to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” According to the release, the lawsuit challenges contract language adopted after a March 26, 2026 executive order directing federal agencies to add terms prohibiting contractors from engaging in “racially discriminatory DEI activities” connected to federal contract work.

Weiser’s office says the new requirements are unclear, confusing, and were rushed into place without the public-comment process normally required by law. Contractors that violate the terms could face serious penalties, including cancellation of contracts, exclusion from future federal contracts, and lawsuits under the False Claims Act.

So here we are again: Colorado government has discovered “federal overreach,” but only because the wrong team is holding the cattle prod. The clean issue is not “Trump good” or “DEI sacred cow.” The issue is normal contractors, universities, nonprofits, state agencies, and vendors getting yanked around by Washington ideology machines while ambitious attorneys general turn procurement memos into campaign theater.

The Bullet Point Brief

• Weiser joined 19 other attorneys general in suing the Trump administration over federal contract terms aimed at purging certain DEI practices from federal contracting. Somewhere, a procurement lawyer just aged seven years.
• The lawsuit says federal agencies skipped regular procedures, including public comment, leaving contractors without clear guidance on what the new terms actually require. Perfect. Nothing says “good government” like forcing people to sign a legal fog bank.
• The penalties are not exactly symbolic. Weiser’s release says contractors could face contract cancellation, exclusion from future federal work, and False Claims Act lawsuits. That is not a memo. That is a bear trap with a compliance checklist.
• The federal government estimates the order could affect as many as 640,000 contracts and subcontracts nationwide, including more than 160,000 contracts with over 34,000 unique vendors. This is not some boutique squabble for law professors and MSNBC panels.
• Weiser says the Trump administration’s attacks on DEI programs are illegal and an affront to American values. Fine, Phil. But if the principle is that presidents cannot use public contracts to force ideological obedience, some of us have a few follow-up questions about Colorado’s own progressive compliance maze.

My Bottom Line

Coloradans are tired of being governed by dueling political litmus tests. One administration tries to shove DEI into every corner of public life. The next tries to rip it out through federal contract language. Then the people actually doing the work are left reading legal fine print like it is an ideological hostage note.

Weiser has a point if he is arguing that Washington should not use federal contracts as a loyalty test. That principle is worth defending. Public work should not require contractors to bow before the political theology of whichever party currently controls the White House. But let’s not pretend Colorado’s ruling class just discovered this problem yesterday in a burst of constitutional innocence.

For years, the progressive machine has treated grants, rules, licensing, education policy, and public dollars like a compliance maze. Use the right words. Fund the right initiatives. Nod at the right theories. File the right plan. Attend the right training. Then, suddenly, when the ideological shoe lands on the other foot and comes stamped with Trump’s name, compelled speech and politicized funding conditions are terrifying.

Good. They should be terrifying. But the terror should be principled, not partisan.

Coloradans should not have to support DEI bureaucracy to be eligible for public work. They also should not have to sign some Washington loyalty oath because the White House changed teams. That is the scam: government-by-contract clause, where elected hacks outsource culture-war enforcement to procurement departments and call it policy.

So yes, make Weiser wear the hypocrisy jacket. He earned the tailoring. But do not defend dumb federal micromanagement just because it annoys the DEI priesthood. The real principle is local sanity over federal whiplash. Public contracts should buy goods and services, not ideological obedience with an invoice number.

Source: Attorney General Phil Weiser