Two hundred and fifty protesters braved the rain Monday to encourage lawmakers not to extend Gov. Ned Lamont’s executive powers.
“I’m just out here to stop this tyranny,” Rev. Ollie Gray III of Waterbury said.
“We did not elect a monarch. We have a legislature that is supposed to represent us,” Sam Zeldner of Norwalk said.
Protesters and lawmakers gathered on the north steps of the state Capitol to voice their opposition to an extension of Lamont’s emergency power through September.
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“I’m out here because I don’t want to have a mask on my daughter in the fall,” Kevin Larsen of East Hartford said.
His daughter Autumn is also done with the mask.
“I have long days in school so I don’t like wearing the mask in school for a long time. But I can take my mask off in lunch and that’s my only mask break,” Autumn Larsen said.
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“It should be a parental choice. We don’t live in communist China,” Larsen said.
Democratic lawmakers want to extend Lamont’s powers.
“There is no King Lamont. I think that’s all bluster and rhetoric. That’s OK. People have the right to express themselves that way,” House Majority Leader Jason Rojas said.
Rojas says they are convening on Wednesday to do their job.
“When just the governor acts on his own that’s not the voice of the people,” Patrick Sasser of Stamford said.
Lamont requested an extension of 11 executive orders.
“We want to continue the emergency powers for another couple of months to get us through the beginning of the school year,” Lamont said.
Autumn Larsen is ready to take off the mask.
“Because you can’t breathe in them,” she said.
