A lawsuit filed last week against several state officials and agencies seeks, among other things, to remove a mural in the state Capitol that shows a similarity to Babydog, Governor Jim Justice’s bulldog and political support.
The lawsuit was filed Friday in Kanawha County District Court on behalf of McDowell County resident Gregory Morris and artist Tom Acosta, who previously submitted a bid to create the murals. The contract was ultimately awarded to Connecticut-based firm John Canning & Co.
The lawsuit alleges that government procurement requirements were circumvented and public assembly laws were violated prior to the decision to install the mural.
According to arguments in the lawsuit, Randall Reid-Smith, Secretary of Arts, Culture and History, made a “unilateral decision” to move forward with the mural project nearly a decade after it was originally approved and ultimately rejected, without the approval of the Capitol Building Commission – which reviews and decides on proposed changes to the state Capitol.
During the course of the project, according to the lawsuit, Reid-Smith entered into a “civil conspiracy” with John Canning & Co. – also named as a defendant – to award the contract to the firm.
“Randall Reid-Smith began planning to implement a portion of the previously canceled Capitol Rotunda mural project using a vendor of his choosing and foregoing the competitive expression of interest process used in 2010 to pre-select proposed artists,” the lawsuit states.
The contract awarded to Canning in 2011 was approved by the West Virginia Attorney General, according to the lawsuit, but was never submitted to the Capitol Building Commission for review or approval. According to emails listed in the lawsuit, the mural project was initially canceled about three months after the contract was awarded.
In 2019, Reid-Smith and Canning representatives began communicating again via email about the mural project, including what would be shown in the images, the project’s price tag (set at $485,000), and preliminary sketches for the installation in the Capitol’s upper rotunda.
In April 2022, Reid-Smith sent a letter to state purchasing director Mike Sheets requesting an exemption from procurement rules requiring public bidding for state projects, saying the murals were “impossible to bid for.” The letter stated – incorrectly, according to the lawsuit – that Canning had a property right to the work and that the artwork was “originally by [state Capitol architect] The design by Cass Gilbert.” What was not taken into account was the fact that there had already been a tender process for the same project in the past.
In the spring of 2024, the lawsuit says, Reid-Smith created a five-member ad hoc committee to review and finalize the murals’ details. That committee should have been subject to the state’s open meeting laws, the lawsuit argues, but did not function as one.
In a closed session, the committee approved the inclusion of “cartoon-like characters” of a bird, a moose and an English bulldog in the murals, as well as a historically incorrect depiction of the Battle of Philippi.
“The conduct of Randall Reid-Smith in appointing and convening this ad hoc committee was a gross violation of his duties of care, loyalty, impartiality and fairness which he owed to the people of the State of West Virginia in his capacity as Chairman of the [Capitol Building Commission] and Secretary of the Ministry of[Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte]“, the lawsuit states.[ArtsCultureandHistory”thesuitreads[ArtsCultureandHistory”thesuitreads
The wall installations attracted widespread attention in June this year when it was revealed that they included a depiction of Babydog, Justice’s English bulldog. Justice and Reid-Smith have maintained that Justice knew nothing about the dog’s depiction in the murals.
Justice told reporters earlier this year that Reid-Smith told him the animal was actually Babydog’s “20th grandma” and was taken in because “they just thought an English bulldog was something that would have been there at the time.”
According to the American Kennel Club, English Bulldogs were recognized as a breed in America in 1890, almost 30 years after West Virginia became a state.
Reid Smith said MetroNews in June that the tribute to Babydog was a fitting addition to the murals depicting the state’s history because “people will always remember Babydog, and that is history.”
In the lawsuit, however, the plaintiffs argue that the dog’s inclusion is even more sinister given how involved she is in Justice’s political campaigns and actions. In recent years, Babydog grown in political popularity. She is often at Justice’s side at press conferences, election campaigns and more. She has – as far as a dog can – approved Candidates who have a “Paws down” to a constitutional amendment and was used as political support for and against other policies and CampaignsShe appeared on stage Her face and name can be seen at the Republican National Convention in July and on numerous articles on Justice’s campaign website for his current Republican candidacy for Senate.
“Randall Reid-Smith’s conduct in convening this ad hoc committee and in directing a committee decision to include in a mural in the Capitol’s main rotunda the image of an English bulldog, clearly identified as that of Reid-Smith’s political boss and as a partisan political party mascot, constitutes an act of unjust enrichment and the use of Randall Reid-Smith’s various offices in state government for purposes of personal gain and self-aggrandizement,” the lawsuit states.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs are asking that the purchase agreement for the murals be voided, payments for them be halted, the murals be removed, and all future work on the project be halted until a fair and competitive bidding process is conducted. They also want Randall Reid-Smith — who is named in the lawsuit as both Cabinet Secretary and Chairman of the Capitol Building Commission — to pay legal fees for the lawsuit and repay the state for the more than $400,000 already invested in the mural project.
According to the Kanawha District Court, the case was assigned to District Judge David Hardy, who served as West Virginia State Treasurer in the Department of Justice from January 2017 to December 2023.
