NORWICH – Approximately 40 members of the local Tea Party movement gathered in East Park Tuesday, protesting proposed health care legislation and showing their support for an additional 40 to 50 members lobbying for the cause in Washington, D.C.

Established in 2009, the grassroots organization has steadily increased in both size and popularity, and continues to champion its core values of “fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government,” according to a Tea Party Patriots brochure.

“We’ve come together to protest the government pushing this health care through,” said local Tea Party Organizer Charlie Resseguie. “Our people have had enough of this stuff.”

In addition to protesting pending health care reform, and supporting the Washington bus trip, members and organizers of the local organization took the opportunity to offer passing pedestrians a wealth of information, including brochures and copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, which Resseguie cited as the inspiration for the movement.