Armed with signs and petitions, roughly 200 protesters descended on a fortified state Capitol Building this afternoon calling for an extension of a tax on high-income earners and a ban on hydrofracking.

The petitions — which called for a re-instatement of the surcharge due to expire at the end of the year and a ban on the controversial natural gas extraction process, were delivered to the mail room at the Capitol, ostensibly to be sent to the governor.

The protest, which wound its way from the War Room on the second floor to outside the Senate chamber, lasted for roughly a hour. No one has been reported arrested. The protest initially began in Washington Park, and included a stop off at the state Business Council, a pro-business lobbying group that endorsed Cuomo. owsalbany

Among some of the more original chants included a reference to a statement Gov. Andrew Cuomo made earlier this month: “Who is the government? I am the government.”

The demonstration appeared to have strong support from Citizen Action, the liberal activist group.

The Occupy movement has been a sensitive issue for the governor. He is enforcing a curfew at Lafayette Park, the state-owned portion of land across the street from the Washington Avenue side of the Capitol. Protesters continue to camp out in the city-controlled portion known as Academy Park.

Dozens of protesters have been arrested after violating that curfew, but District Attorney David Soares says he won’t prosecute them.

Cuomo himself has shruged off today’s protest, noting that demonstrations are nothing new at the Capitol and that

“Just so we’re clear, this happens routinely,” Cuomo said yesterday at a Red Room cabinet meeting. “Now, if we have busloads of people coming up, the superintendent is going to call up other State Troopers. During the last session we had an abundance of State Troopers.”

But Cuomo does face internal divisions within his own party on the very issues the protesters are raising: the millionaires tax and hydrofracking. Angry Democrats stormed out of a meeting earlier today when resolutions supporting a millonaires tax and calling for a ban on hydrofracking were tabled.

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