Sen. Rob Sampson Slams Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate

HARTFORD – Late yesterday, Governor Lamont announced an Executive order which will require state employees to get vaccinated, with some having the ‘option’ to submit to weekly testing.

Senator Rob Sampson (R-Wolcott) serves as the Ranking Member of the legislature’s Labor and Public Employees Committee which has cognizance on state employees and their collective bargaining. Additionally, Sampson leads Republicans on the Government and Election Administration Committee which oversees the use or abuse of government and elected officials’ powers. He offers the following statement in response:

“This announcement takes us to an entirely new level of assault on people’s personal liberties. It will be very interesting to see how the largest group of organized laborers in the state will react to being told they have to surrender their personal body choices or face a very uncomfortable work environment.

“State employees, like the rest of Connecticut’s citizens, have been the targets of a multi-pronged campaign aimed at coercing people into getting vaccinated by misleading information, fear-mongering, peer-pressure, bribery, and shaming. Those who are already vaccinated are becoming aggravated by the return of increased regulation which makes their decision seem pointless. It’s abundantly clear that an end to the Governor’s emergency powers is long overdue.

“This is another in a parade of executive edicts that violate the civil and human rights of Connecticut citizens, and are in direct opposition to the spirit and letter of our constitutionally protected freedoms.  Our unique American system is about the people’s freedom, not the government’s force.

“Where is the data that backs up this decision? The statistics right on the state coronavirus portal shows a virtually flattened curve of hospitalizations and deaths and the nation’s second highest vaccination rate.

“The most recent extension was based on the obvious lie that we are in an emergency state, and the extension necessitated by this policy will be an even more outrageous abuse of power.

“A Governor that will go to these lengths to deceive the citizens he works for is not fit to be Governor, much less the King he is becoming.  It’s time for our representative form of government to be allowed to fully function. In America, we tell the government what to do, not the other way around.”