Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is suing President Donald Trump’s administration over its “retaliatory” decision to relocate U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado on Wednesday, Weiser wrote that the president “could not have been clearer about his motivations” for the move, citing Trump’s comments during the Oval Office announcement last month acknowledging that Colorado’s elections, which he falsely described as “crooked,” were a “big factor” in his decision.

That admission makes Trump’s decision to vacate Space Command’s temporary location in Colorado — the latest twist in a years-long battle over the permanent home of Space Force headquarters — an unconstitutional violation of state sovereignty, Weiser said in a press conference.

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“The executive branch isn’t allowed to punish, retaliate, or seek to coerce states who lawfully exercise powers that are reserved to them,” Weiser said. “And that includes the power to oversee the time, place and manner of elections.”

Colorado adopted its universal mail-in ballot system in 2014. Like other top Republicans, Trump — who has lost the contest for the Centennial State’s electoral votes in three consecutive presidential elections — has repeatedly and baselessly impugned the integrity of elections held using mail-in ballots. Studies have found no evidence that vote-by-mail increases the incidence of voter fraud, which is extremely rare in U.S. elections across many different state-administered voting systems.

“If we in Colorado don’t take a stand against this unconstitutional and unlawful decision, we in Colorado and other states who use mail-in voting are going to be subject to further pressure or punishment, unless and until we stop exercising our constitutional authority,” Weiser added. “That’s not acceptable.”

The lawsuit filed Wednesday marks the 41st time that Weiser, a two-term Democratic attorney general and a candidate for governor in 2026, has sued the federal government since Trump’s second presidential term began in January.

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Trump created Space Force in 2019 as an independent service branch during his first term, and he established Space Command, previously part of the U.S. Air Force, as one of the military’s 11 so-called unified combatant commands. Since then, Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs has served as the command’s interim headquarters.

In the final days of his first term, Trump endorsed a permanent move for Space Command to Huntsville’s Redstone Arsenal, but President Joe Biden’s administration reversed that decision in 2023. A Department of Defense inspector general report released in April found that while some senior military leaders preferred the Alabama location because of greater long-term cost efficiency, others said a permanent home in Colorado would allow it to better retain its civilian workforce and ensure operational readiness.

Construction of secure facilities for a new Space Command headquarters in Alabama is expected to take years, and the command has continued to operate from Colorado since Trump’s announcement. Weiser said his office will seek relief in the form of a pause on any concrete steps taken towards relocation while the litigation proceeds through the courts.

“We don’t know yet that there’s been any imminent steps where Space Command is being relocated,” Weiser told reporters Wednesday. “We’re acting now so that we’re getting ahead of any potential actions and … prevent them from happening, until a court looks at the merits of our case and can determine that the basis for this move is unlawful and can’t be justified as set forth by the president.”