Lawsuit calls for murals to be removed from Capitol due to illegal purchasing procedures, more

A dog that looks similar to Gov. Jim Justice's English bulldog Babydog appeared in one of the new murals in the West Virginia Capitol. (Perry Bennett | West Virginia Legislative Photography)

A lawsuit filed last week against several state officials and agencies is seeking to, among other things, remove a mural in the state Capitol that features a likeness to Babydog, Gov. Jim Justice’s pet bulldog and political prop .

The lawsuit was filed Friday in Kanawha County Circuit Court on behalf of citizen Gregory Morris and McDowell County artist Tom Acosta, who previously entered a bid to execute the murals. That contract was ultimately given to Connecticut-based firm John Canning & Co.

The lawsuit alleges that the lead up to the decision to install the mural circumvented state purchasing requirements and violated open meetings laws.

According to arguments in the lawsuit, Department of Arts, Culture and History Secretary Randall Reid-Smith made a “unilateral decision” without the OK from the Capitol Building Commission — which reviews and rules on proposed alterations within the state Capitol complex — to move forward with the mural project nearly 10 years after it was initially approved and, ultimately, scrapped.

As the project proceeded, according to the suit, Reid-Smith “entered into a civil conspiracy” with John Canning & Co. — which is also named as a defendant — to award the firm the contract.

“Randall Reid-Smith embarked upon a plan to implement a portion of the previously canceled Capitol rotunda mural project with the use of a vendor that he personally preferred and without the competitive request for expressions of interest that had been employed for the preliminary selection of proposed artists in 2010,” according to the complaint.

The contract that was awarded to Canning in 2011, according to the suit, was approved by the West Virginia attorney general but was never presented to the Capitol Building Commission for review or approval. According to emails detailed in the suit, the mural project was initially canceled about three months after this contract was awarded.

Come 2019, Reid-Smith and representatives from Canning began emailing again about the mural project, including what would be included in the images, the price for the project (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 to purchasing rules that require public bidding for state projects, saying the murals were “impossible to bid.” The letter said, inaccurately according to the suit, that Canning has a proprietary interest in the work and that the art was “original to [state Capitol architect] Cass Gilbert’s design.” It did not include the fact that there had been a bidding process in the past for the same project.

In spring 2024, the suit reads, Reid-Smith created a five-member ad hoc committee to review and finalize the details of the murals. This committee should have been subject to the state’s open meetings laws, the suit argues, but did not operate as such.

In a meeting that was not open to the public, the committee approved including “cartoonish figures” of a bird, an elk and an English bulldog in the murals, as well as a historically inaccurate depiction of the Battle of Philippi.

“The conduct of Randall Reid-Smith in appointing and convening this ad hoc committee was a gross breach of his duties of care, loyalty, impartiality and fairness that 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 Department of [Arts, Culture and History,” the suit reads.

The mural installations sparked attention this June, when it was revealed they included what seemed to be a depiction of Babydog, Justice’s pet English bulldog. Justice and Reid-Smith have maintained that Justice was not aware of the dog’s inclusion in the murals.

Justice told reporters earlier this year that Reid-Smith told him the animal was actually Babydog’s “20th grandma” and was included because “they just thought an English bulldog at the time would have been something that would have been there.”

According to the American Kennel Club, English bulldogs were recognized as a breed in America in 1890, nearly 30 years after West Virginia gained statehood.

Reid-Smith told MetroNews in June that the homage to Babydog was an appropriate inclusion in the murals depicting the state’s history because “

In the suit, however, filers argue that the dog’s inclusion is more sinister given how entwined she’s become to Justice’s political campaigns and actions. Over the last few years, Babydog has grown in political popularity. She’s often at Justice’s side during press conferences, on the campaign trail and more. She — as much as a dog can — has endorsed candidates, given a “ paws down ” to a constitutional amendment and been used as a political prop for and against other policies and campaigns . She appeared on stage at the Republican National Convention in July and numerous pieces of merchandise on Justice’s campaign website for his current Republican bid for Senate feature her face and name.

“The conduct of Randall Reid-Smith in convening this ad hoc committee and presiding over a decision by the committee to include a depiction of a domestic English bulldog clearly identified as that of Reid-Smith’s political boss and identified as a mascot associated with a partisan political party in a mural placed in the main rotunda of the Capitol constitutes an act of unjust enrichment and use of Randall Reid-Smith’s various state government positions for purposes of personal gain and self-aggrandizement,” the suit reads.

In the suit, the filers ask for the purchasing contract for the murals to be voided, the payments for them to stop, the murals be removed and any future work on the project halted until a fair and competitive bidding process is held. They also want Randall Reid-Smith — who is named in the suit in both his cabinet secretary position and as chair of the Capitol Building Commission — to pay attorneys fees for the legal proceedings on top of paying back the state the more than $400,000 already put into the mural project.

The case, according to the Kanawha County Circuit Court, has been assigned to Circuit Judge David Hardy, who served as West Virginia Revenue Secretary under Justice from Jan. 2017 to Dec. 2023.

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