Colorado has developed an expensive habit of testing the limits of the First Amendment. Over the past decade, state officials have fought legal battles over religious expression, artistic speech, political advocacy, and private counseling, sometimes all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The results have included embarrassing constitutional defeats and millions of dollars in attorneys' fees. One might expect this record to inspire a little humility in Denver. Instead, lawmakers continue advancing legislation that raises many of the same constitutional questions, apparently confident that the next attempt to regulate somebody's speech will work out better than the last.
The financial consequences are substantial. Colorado has agreed to pay **more than $7.82 million in legal fees and costs arising from just three First Amendment disputes**. That includes $6.1 million in litigation involving a Catholic healthcare clinic, more than $1.5 million after losing a landmark Supreme Court case involving a Christian website designer, and $220,000 after imposing unconstitutional disclosure requirements on a tiny political advocacy group. Those figures don't include the state's own legal expenses, other constitutional litigation, or future settlements. And the people ultimately responsible for paying aren't the politicians who championed these laws. They're Colorado taxpayers, who apparently have the privilege of financing their government's repeated encounters with constitutional reality.
The $1.5 Million Wedding Website
Consider the case of Lorie Smith, the Colorado graphic designer who wanted to create custom wedding websites without being forced to produce content celebrating same-sex marriages, which conflicted with her religious convictions. Smith maintained that she would serve customers regardless of sexual orientation; her objection concerned creating a particular message. Colorado, however, argued that its public-accommodations law could require her to provide the expressive service. The dispute eventually reached the Supreme Court, which ruled 6-3 in Smith's favor in June 2023. The Court held that Colorado could not compel an artist to create expressive content communicating a message she did not believe. [1]
The state had spent seven years defending its position before receiving that rather elementary constitutional lesson. In 2024, Colorado agreed to pay **more than $1.5 million in attorneys' fees** to resolve the case. That's a remarkable bill for attempting to force a graphic designer to express something she didn't want to express. The Supreme Court didn't abolish anti-discrimination laws or grant businesses unlimited authority to refuse customers. It simply affirmed that government cannot use those laws to compel protected speech. Colorado's pursuit of a broader interpretation accomplished little beyond establishing an important precedent against its own position, and sending a seven-figure invoice to taxpayers. [2]
The $6.1 Million Dispute With a Catholic Medical Clinic
Then came Colorado's attempt to restrict so-called abortion-pill reversal. In 2023, Democratic lawmakers enacted Senate Bill 190, targeting deceptive advertising by pregnancy centers and restricting the use of progesterone to attempt to reverse a medication abortion. Major medical organizations maintain that evidence supporting the treatment is inadequate, and its effectiveness remains unproven. But the Catholic healthcare clinic Bella Health and Wellness challenged the restriction on religious-freedom grounds, arguing that it interfered with care the clinic considered part of its religious mission.
In August 2025, U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico ruled that the law, as applied to Bella Health and a nurse practitioner who joined the case, violated the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause. The court identified constitutional problems with Colorado's inconsistent treatment of progesterone and its failure to adequately justify the restriction on religious practice. The ruling did not invalidate every provision of the law, but it permanently prohibited enforcement against the successful plaintiffs. The financial aftermath was considerably less restrained: Colorado agreed to pay **$5.4 million to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and another $700,000 to Alliance Defending Freedom**, bringing the total to $6.1 million. [3][4]
That's $6.1 million because a law enacted in the name of patient protection failed constitutional scrutiny in its application to religious healthcare providers. The state had legitimate medical concerns to investigate, but its chosen method crossed a constitutional boundary. One would think that protecting patients and respecting religious liberty could both fit within the responsibilities of government. Instead, Colorado managed to turn the dispute into an extraordinarily expensive legal defeat, with the financial burden falling on citizens who had no role in drafting the legislation.
The Supreme Court's Latest Warning
The pattern continued in March 2026, when the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in *Chiles v. Salazar*. The case involved Kaley Chiles, a licensed mental-health counselor challenging Colorado's restrictions on conversion therapy for minors. The state defended its law as a patient-protection measure, citing concerns about practices widely condemned by major medical organizations. But Chiles' challenge concerned voluntary, talk-only counseling, and the Supreme Court concluded that Colorado's law regulated that speech based on viewpoint. The justices returned the case to the lower courts for more demanding First Amendment scrutiny. Even liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor agreed that the law's treatment of competing viewpoints presented a constitutional problem. [5]
That decision did not strike down the entire statute or award damages, and the case remains legally significant without a verified final attorneys' fee figure to add to the tally. Still, Colorado has spent years defending a restriction that eight Supreme Court justices concluded required considerably more rigorous constitutional review. The state may sincerely believe its regulations protect vulnerable young people, but sincerity doesn't eliminate the First Amendment. Government cannot simply label speech a professional practice and assume its constitutional obligations have disappeared.
Colorado's regulatory enthusiasm has even extended to political pamphlets. In *Coalition for Secular Government v. Williams*, a two-person organization planning to raise less than $3,500 faced burdensome campaign-finance disclosure requirements for distributing political commentary. The Tenth Circuit ruled in 2016 that applying those requirements to the group violated the First Amendment. Colorado eventually changed the law and paid **$220,000 in attorneys' fees**. The case involved an earlier, politically different state administration, but illustrates the larger institutional problem: government can become so enthusiastic about regulating civic participation that ordinary citizens practically need a lawyer before expressing an opinion. [6]
Why Does Colorado Keep Doing This?
The recurring conflict is revealing. Colorado has repeatedly attempted to pursue social and regulatory objectives by controlling activities that involve protected speech, conscience, or religious practice. The methods vary: public-accommodations laws, professional licensing rules, healthcare regulations, and political disclosure requirements. But the constitutional danger is similar. When officials become convinced that their preferred policy represents a moral necessity, disagreement can begin to look less like a protected liberty and more like an administrative problem requiring correction.
This is especially apparent in the state's recent disputes over expression and identity. Colorado's 2025 Kelly Loving Act, House Bill 1312, amended antidiscrimination protections involving gender identity and chosen names. In September 2026, a federal judge permitted several First Amendment challenges to portions of the law to proceed, although she did not rule that the statute was unconstitutional. That distinction matters financially: the state is already defending another constitutional dispute, and further expenses or fee awards remain possible depending on how the litigation develops. After the earlier cases, Colorado's taxpayers have reason to pay attention. [7]
There is also a political incentive worth examining. Legislators receive immediate recognition for passing high-profile laws, particularly those celebrated by influential advocacy organizations. Constitutional challenges, meanwhile, can take years to resolve. By the time the courts issue a ruling and attorneys' fees are negotiated, the original lawmakers may have moved to different offices or entirely different careers. The financial consequences remain with the state. **The politicians receive credit for their ambitions; the public inherits the litigation costs.** It's an unusually comfortable arrangement for people entrusted with spending other people's money.
The Constitution Isn't an Optional Expense
Colorado's confirmed fee settlements in these three cases exceed $7.82 million, and that isn't a comprehensive accounting of what state government has spent defending First Amendment litigation. Obtaining a complete figure would require examining government legal expenditures, outside counsel contracts, and additional settlements. Yet even the established amount should prompt greater scrutiny of constitutionally questionable legislation before it becomes law.
The First Amendment isn't an obstacle to good government that lawmakers must cleverly maneuver around. It is one of the fundamental limits that makes constitutional government possible. It protects the right to express unpopular ideas, decline compelled expression, exercise religious beliefs, and challenge political authority. Those protections are especially important when the governing majority finds someone's views objectionable. After all, popular opinions rarely need constitutional protection.
Colorado's officials have every right to pursue public-health protections, civil-rights enforcement, and professional standards. What they do not possess is unlimited authority to pursue those objectives by disregarding constitutional restrictions. Federal courts have repeatedly demonstrated the difference, sometimes at an extraordinary price.
**Colorado's taxpayers shouldn't have to keep financing the government's education in the First Amendment. Particularly when the lesson was written down nearly 235 years ago.**
Sources
**[1] U.S. Supreme Court, June 30, 2023.** [*303 Creative LLC v. Elenis*](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/21-476). The Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling against compelled expressive content.
**[2] Colorado Public Radio, October 1, 2024.** [Colorado to Pay Christian Graphic Artist $1.5 Million in Legal Fees](https://www.cpr.org/2024/10/01/colorado-pays-1-5-million-to-christian-graphic-artist-gay-rights-case/).
**[3] U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, August 1, 2025.** [*Bella Health and Wellness v. Weiser*](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-dis-crt-d-col/117574429.html). Federal ruling addressing Colorado's restrictions under the Free Exercise Clause.
**[4] The Colorado Sun, January 19, 2026.** [Colorado to Pay $6.1 Million Over Attempt to Ban Abortion Pill “Reversal”](https://coloradosun.com/2026/01/19/abortion-pill-reversal-lawsuit-settlement/).
**[5] U.S. Supreme Court, March 31, 2026.** [*Chiles v. Salazar*](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/24-539). The Court's 8-1 decision requiring heightened scrutiny of Colorado's viewpoint-based counseling restriction.
**[6] Institute for Free Speech.** [Colorado Closes Free Speech Case, Changes Law, Pays $220K in Attorneys' Fees](https://www.ifs.org/news/colorado-closes-free-speech-case-changes-law-pays-220k-in-attorneys-fees/).
**[7] Bloomberg Law, September 28, 2026.** [Challenge to Colorado Transgender Protections Can Move Forward](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/challenge-to-colorado-transgender-protections-can-move-forward). Reporting on pending First Amendment challenges to the state's newer antidiscrimination protections.
