COLUMBUS, OHIO — In June 2020, with Ohioans still reeling from her lockdowns, courts striking down her orders as unconstitutional, and state legislators demanding accountability, Amy Acton resigned as Ohio Health Director. She did not stay to fix the damage she caused. She did not see it through. (ABC News, 6/11/20)
Now she wants to be Governor of Ohio.
Acton’s own words tell the story. After resigning, she admitted she quit over the reopening of Ohio’s county fairs — fairs she had shut down — and that being asked to allow them back was “the final straw.” (NBC 4, 1/30/2025) That’s the admission at the center of her record: when pressed to answer for her decisions and walk back overreach that harmed Ohio families and businesses, she walked out instead.
The damage she left behind was serious enough that a sitting Ohio Republican lawmaker introduced legislation specifically limiting the health director’s authority — a direct legislative response to what lawmakers viewed as her unchecked, unaccountable use of power. (NBC News, 2020) Her tenure didn’t just end in resignation; it ended in a constitutional rebuke and a scramble to make sure no one could do what she did again.
The full record speaks for itself: making up data, issuing unconstitutional orders, locking families out of nursing homes, closing Ohio schools — and then quitting midway through the crisis she created. Amy Acton is now asking Ohioans to hand her more power as Governor of Ohio. She couldn’t handle Health Director. Ohio can’t afford to find out what she’d do with the keys to the whole state.
