New Hampshire state Rep. William Marsh said he quit the Republican Party to protest the state GOP’s COVID-19 vaccine policies, slamming them as “a bridge too far.”
“I can’t sit by in silence,” Marsh, an ophthalmologist, told CNN’s Erin Burnett.
The New Hampshire state GOP’s push to ban businesses from mandating vaccinations for staff and customers, and schools from mandating masks, prompted Marsh’s jump to the Democratic Party, he said.
“We all know what’s happened in states that have followed that path,” warned Marsh of the GOP’s agenda. “People are getting sick. People are dying, including an increasingly high percentage of children.”
The issue was not with the government putting policies in place, said Marsh. But preventing companies from doing so, he said, is “a bridge too far.”
“I do see some point with the government not mandating certain things,” admitted Marsh. “I’m not going to fight that too much, although, in certain venues such as health care facilities, we do have an obligation to keep people safe.”
“But that doesn’t necessarily apply universally,” he added. “To prohibit businesses from putting in place the policies they need to keep themselves in business, that’s not what Republicans do.”