Democrat Amy Acton did not show up to her own campaign event over the weekend, where American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten had traveled to Ohio to hold a meet-and-greet on her behalf. The event’s host told attendees Acton was absent because she had “lost her voice.”
Acton is running as the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor against Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, competing to succeed term-limited Gov. Mike DeWine. She previously served as director of the Ohio Department of Health, where she became known as the state’s “COVID Czar” in early 2020. Ohio was the first state in the nation to close all public schools under her leadership.
Weingarten, who has led the AFT for years, supported extended public school closures during the pandemic. A February 2021 report from Ohio’s education department found steep academic losses tied to that period. “Across most grades, English language arts proficiency rates generally decreased by about eight percentage points and math proficiency rates decreased by approximately 15 percentage points,” the report stated. Third-grade students showed roughly 20 percent less learning on average between November 2020 and April 2021 compared with students in prior years. Urban districts also saw higher rates of chronic absenteeism during that stretch.
Acton resigned from her health department post in 2020, saying at the time that “the demands of the job were too great.”
Despite that record, Acton has brought Weingarten onto her gubernatorial campaign. In audio from Sunday’s event obtained by Breitbart News, Weingarten praised Acton’s handling of the pandemic and her views on public schooling.
“You all know Amy better than I know Amy… I love her, I think she’s fantastic. The courage that she had to try to navigate through COVID, the understanding about how important public education is, as a way of creating pluralism in this country… she feels and understands and she knows it. She lived it.”
Weingarten also used her remarks to praise a “No Kings” demonstration held the day before and said her union has committed “a lot of staff on the ground” to help elect Acton.
Weingarten’s campaigning isn’t limited to Ohio. After Sunday’s event, she is scheduled to appear in Michigan on Tuesday alongside Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson.
