CHARLESTON — West Virginia’s superintendent of schools responded to a federal lawsuit that contends he tried to have a lobbyist fired by a national standardized testing company.
Steve Paine admits telephone conversations as far up as the chief executive officer of ACT, but denies those conversations were meant to be “threatening” or “menacing.”
“Defendant Paine admits that several times in 2018 and 2019 he did call ACT officials and did speak with the CEO,” according to the response.
Lawyers for Paine and assistant schools Superintendent Jan Barth filed answers to a lawsuit by lobbyist Jason Webb on Friday.
Webb, a longtime lobbyist at West Virginia’s Capitol, filed suit June 12 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
Webb contended Paine used his authority to try to have him fired.
Webb described the issue as a personality conflict and also a running dispute over the politics of standardized testing. Webb represented the standardized testing company ACT while it was going head-to-head with SAT in West Virginia.
Paine, who has twice served as West Virginia’s superintendent of schools, declined to comment when the lawsuit was first filed.
So this response in federal court is the first public representation of his point of view.
The lawsuit claims that several times in 2018 and 2019, Paine personally called top ACT officials — including the chief executive officer — to push for Webb to stop from publicly criticizing the Department of Education, particular education policies or other standardized testing vendors.
If not, the lawsuit claims, “Paine would ensure that ACT would never do business with the State of West Virginia again.”
The lawsuit contends those actions violated Webb’s First Amendment rights and “constitutes tortious interference with Webb’s business relationship with his client ACT.”
Most of Paine’s response acknowledges basic facts or denies Webb’s interpretation.
But he acknowledges some of the conversations with leaders of ACT while also denying that they were threatening in nature.
In some instances, Paine acknowledges calling Scott Montgomery, ACT’s senior vice president for programs.
Webb’s lawsuit alleges one such call in December, 2018, “with a fairly urgent tone” was made as the Legislature considered a bill to give counties the option to use either ACT or SAT.
The lawsuit says that situation escalated when Paine and Barth called the senior vice president to prevent the lobbyist from posting about certain topics on Twitter, “implying negative consequences to ACT if ACT did not do so.”
Webb had called SAT a “common core” test on social media.
In Paine’s response, he “admits that in December, 2018, Paine and defendant Barth called the Senior VP for programs and shared concerns that a tweet by Webb was creating misinformation.”
A similar incident happened in February.
The response filed last week states that Paine acknowledges “he and defendant Barth spoke with the Senior VP for Programs at ACT and objected to the Plaintiff’s lobbying tactics, including his activities on Twitter.”
About a month later, that led to Paine warning Montgomery that he would call the CEO of ACT. The call took place March 5.
The original lawsuit alleges that Paine told the CEO Webb has a “bad reputation” and that ACT needed to “get rid of him” or the Department of Education would disqualify ACT from participating in future bids because of ACT associating with an “unscrupulous” person.
Paine acknowledges the call but denies the
allegations.
His response “admits that the CEO responded to Defendant Paine that if Webb had done something wrong then Defendant Paine should file a complaint with the West Virginia Ethics Commission.”
The lawyers for Paine and Barth are asking for Webb’s complaint to be dismissed with prejudice.
Webb is asking for a jury trial, damages and other relief.
Paine and Barth are represented by lawyers Jan Fox and Mark Dean with Steptoe & Johnson.
Webb is represented by J. Zak Ritchie of Hissam Forman Donovan Ritchie.
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