Senator Amabile used a moment of personal privilege on April 10, 2025, to bring a group she identified as the “Mad Moms” into the Senate chamber and to press colleagues to address gaps in care for adults with serious mental illness.

“It is a stain on our state that we aren’t doing a better job of helping people into care,” Senator Amabile said, describing parents’ repeated attempts to secure services for adult children. She recounted one case in which a brother and family worked with the ACLU and reporters to move a man out of jail: “he was in jail in a solitary confinement cell naked, staring at the wall, saying over and over again, ‘I’m a good person. I’m a good person. I’m a good person,’ and 6 months in.” That person was later placed in a bed at the state hospital in Pueblo and subsequently moved to a transitional living home, Amabile said.

Amabile said the transitional living home had been established through legislation she sponsored with a co-prime from Broomfield, and she presented the family members in the gallery as evidence that some policy changes are working while more work remains. She asked colleagues “to believe that we have a big problem and that it is on us to fix it,” and asked the Senate to acknowledge the visiting parents.

Senator Michaelson Janai rose in support and described her own family experience: “My son was sent to the office every single day of elementary school. Not because he was a bad kid but because he had an illness.” Michaelson Janai framed the remarks as a call to treat people with mental illness as patients in need of care rather than as criminals.

The remarks were delivered during the floor’s moments of personal privilege and were not accompanied by a formal motion, vote, or directive recorded in the Senate transcript. Senator Amabile and Senator Michaelson Janai used the floor time to highlight constituent experiences and urge legislative attention to the state’s mental-health system.