Dear Supporters,
673 supporters | 751 signatures | Goal: 1,000
Today is Saturday, March 14, 2026.
Day 15 of the war that started without a congressional vote.
Day 28 of the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.
I'm writing to you because you signed this petition-because you believe that the 1,032,000 family caregivers in Colorado deserve legal protection. And because I need you to understand what's happening right now, in real time, while we wait for a legislature that has stopped doing its job.
The Cookie She Already Had
My wife asks me sometimes whether we always had dessert.
Not as a challenge. As a genuine question-the kind that comes from trying to manage a difficult situation with fairness, using the history she has, which is shorter than mine.
Didn't we always have something sweet after dinner?
The honest answer is: no. Not always. Occasionally.
But my mother doesn't remember the cookie she had forty minutes before dinner. So every pre-dinner moment feels to her like deprivation. Like something is being withheld.
My wife is reconstructing the past to explain the present.
My mother cannot access the past at all.
And I am the one holding the actual record.
This is what institutional memory feels like from the inside.
Not a database. Not a filing system. A person, in a kitchen, holding the difference between what actually happened and what everyone else has come to believe happened.
A legislature is supposed to be that person.
It isn't, right now.
And you-the 673 supporters and 751 signatories of this petition-are experiencing the cost of that failure whether you realize it or not.
What I've Been Reading
I've been reading the constituent communications from Colorado's 8th Congressional District since Gabe Evans became its representative.
I read them the way a caregiver reads a medical chart-not for what's there, but for what's missing.
Here's what's consistently there: Border security. Energy. Crime. National security. Iran. The economy. Tariffs.
Here's what's consistently absent: Caregiving. Long-term care. The direct-care workforce. The 1,032,000 family caregivers in Colorado-22% of this state's population.
Not once.
Not in a single newsletter since he took office.
I'm not making a partisan argument. I'm making a structural one.
What gets named in newsletters → what gets perceived as constituent concern
What gets perceived as constituent concern → what gets raised in committee
What gets raised in committee → what becomes (or fails to become) law
The invisibility of caregiving in constituent communication is not a coincidence. It is a feedback loop. And the loop is closed.
What Happened in the past Weeks
On February 26, 2026, Oman's foreign minister announced a diplomatic "breakthrough." Iran had agreed to never stockpile enriched uranium, to full IAEA verification, and to irreversibly downgrade its enriched uranium to the lowest level possible.
The foreign minister said peace was "within reach."
Two days later, on February 28, the strikes began.
On March 4, the Senate voted 47–53 to block a War Powers Resolution that would have required congressional authorization for continued military action.
Congress wrote the authority. Congress built no guardrails. And when the moment came to enforce limits, Congress walked away.
Today-Day 15-here's what's happening:
Six U.S. service members were killed overnight when a refueling aircraft went down in western Iraq.
Oil crossed back above $100 per barrel-the day after 32 nations released a record 400 million barrels from emergency reserves in an attempt to stabilize prices. The market's message was clear: the release did nothing.
Fertilizer prices are up 35% in one week. Spring planting decisions are being made right now-this month. The grocery bill impact will arrive in fall 2026. Not someday. Fall.
And today-today specifically-61,000 TSA workers received their first completely empty paycheck.
Anthony Riley
Anthony Riley is 58 years old. He's a TSA officer at Syracuse Hancock International Airport. He's been working without pay for four weeks. He's facing eviction.
This week, he told NBC News: "This is the fourth week I'm working without pay and it's killing me."
Congress debated the DHS shutdown on the Senate floor Wednesday.
Then they went home.
The House is out for a week.
Anthony Riley showed up to work every single day Congress did not.
The Denver Airport Gift Cards
In Denver airport officials asked the public this week to donate $10 and $20 gift cards to help TSA agents pay for groceries and gas.
Let me say that again.
A public institution-the airport-is passing a collection plate for federal workers Congress will not pay.
Not a union fundraiser. Not a GoFundMe.
The airport itself.
Asking travelers to tip the people screening their bags because the legislature cannot do the one job the Constitution assigned it before any other: fund the government it created.
I want you to hold that image.
Because that's what it looks like when the institution charged with holding the record stops doing its job.
What This Means for Caregivers
Every number I just gave you lands somewhere specific.
The oil spike lands on the caregiver driving to a medical appointment.
The fertilizer crisis lands on the household buying groceries in October.
The TSA shutdown lands on the family trying to visit an aging parent across the country.
The war without authorization lands on the veteran's family navigating PTSD six months from now.
And the 1,032,000 Colorado caregivers who never appear in a single congressional newsletter?
We absorb all of it.
We're the ones holding the record when the system stops keeping it.
We're the ones showing up when the institutions don't.
We're the diagnostic class-we feel the institutional failures first, and we carry the weight of every upstream collapse.
What Colorado Did That Congress Hasn't
In the absence of federal legislation, states have been building guardrails.
Colorado right now has the most comprehensive state AI law in the country-the Colorado AI Act, effective 2026.
45 states took up AI-related bills in 2024, not because states are naturally better at this, but because Congress left the space open and someone had to fill it.
And now?
The current administration is moving to preempt those state laws—directing the Secretary of Commerce to identify state AI regulations that conflict with federal policy and refer them to an AI litigation task force.
Read that slowly.
In the absence of federal legislation, states built guardrails.
The executive branch is now moving to dismantle those state guardrails.
And Congress-which has the authority to resolve this by simply passing a law-has not passed one.
We call that abandonment with interference.
In a family system, it's a crisis.
In a constitutional system, it's where we are.
The Colorado CARE Act Is What a Functional Legislature Does
There is nothing in federal law that explicitly protects employed caregivers from discrimination.
Not because the problem doesn't exist.
Not because the evidence isn't overwhelming.
Not because 1,032,000 Colorado caregivers are invisible.
Because Congress has not written the law.
And the newsletters that describe what Congress is paying attention to do not include us.
The Colorado CARE Act is a direct response to that absence.
It does what Congress has not done:
✓ Writes the law
✓ Defines the protection
✓ Builds it into a durable statutory framework
✓ Independent of which administration is in power
✓ Independent of which party controls Congress
✓ Independent of executive orders that can be revoked
Zero general fund appropriation.
Built on existing CCRD infrastructure.
Projecting $9–18 million in annual Medicaid savings.
Amending the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act to add caregiver status as a protected class.
This is what a functional legislature does.
Colorado is doing it because the federal legislature won't.
And the 360,000 employed caregivers in this state-one HR conversation away from the moment I had-cannot wait for Washington to remember what its job is.
We're 249 Signatures from 1,000
Current: 673 supporters | 751 signatures
Goal: 1,000 signatures
Needed: 249 more
Every signature builds pressure for the 2027 Colorado legislative session.
Every signature is evidence that someone is still holding the record.
Every signature says: we see the gap. We name what's missing. We refuse to accept that 22% of Colorado doesn't matter.
What I'm Asking You to Do
1. If you've signed but haven't shared-share now.
Text this petition to five people: https://chng.it/DLWncS9wtT
Post to Facebook, LinkedIn, community groups, church lists, parent networks.
2. Read and listen to Part V of 21st Century Guardrails.
It examines what happens when the institution charged with holding the record stops doing its job-and why caregivers are the ones who end up carrying that weight.
3. Share your story.
Email me at mark_fukae@casiadvocacy.org
Tell me what's missing from your representative's newsletters.
Tell me what it's like to be invisible in the information ecosystem that shapes law.
Tell me how you're holding the record when the system won't.
4. Contact your Colorado legislators.
https://leg.colorado.gov/find-my-legislator
Tell them you support the Colorado CARE Act.
Tell them 22% of Colorado deserves to be visible.
Tell them states have to build what Congress won't.
5. Join the movement.
Professionals Who Care: https://professionalswhocare.org
CASI: https://casiadvocacy.org
Follow us: [LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/company/caregiver-advocacy-and-support-initiative-casi/?viewAsMember=true] [Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61572774032052]
6. Subscribe to The Revenue Neutral Caregiver on Substack.
[https://therevenueneutralcaregiver.substack.com/podcast]
Every Saturday. The caregiver lens on constitutional failure. The work of holding the record when institutions stop.
The Thing About Holding the Record
My mother asks to go home.
She is home. But the home she means exists at a different address-some earlier coordinate her mind still holds as the real one.
My wife asks whether dessert was always the norm.
It wasn't.
But the question is asked in good faith, because the record of before belongs to me, and she is doing her best with what she has.
I hold the record. That's the job.
Day 15 of the war. Day 28 of the shutdown.
Oil above $100. Fertilizer up 35%. Anthony Riley facing eviction. Denver airport passing a collection plate.
And 1,032,000 Colorado caregivers-22% of this state-never mentioned in a single congressional newsletter.
Someone has to hold the record.
Right now, that's you.
The 673 supporters and 751 signatories who said: this matters. Caregivers are infrastructure. The law should recognize us.
Thank you for holding the record with me.
Let's get to 1,000.
Kindly and Gratefully,
Mark Fukae
Founder, CASI - Caregiver Advocacy & Support Initiative
Director of Advocacy, Professionals Who Care
Registered Colorado Volunteer Lobbyist
Contact: mark_fukae@casiadvocacy.org
Petition: https://chng.it/DLWncS9wtT
Part V: [https://therevenueneutralcaregiver.substack.com/p/21st-century-guardrails-a-caregiver-1e8?r=6a52ih&triedRedirect=true]
Part VI: Repair the Executive - next Saturday