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State Superintendent responds to lawsuit

CHARLESTON — In federal court filings last week, West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Steve Paine and Assistant Superintendent Jan Barth disputed claims that the school officials pressured an educational testing company to drop a lobbyist to due hostile tweets.

Paine and Barth filed a response on July 5 to a federal complaint brought by registered lobbyist Jason Webb on June 12 alleging Paine and Barth tried to influence ACT, a major player in educational testing and a client of Webb’s, to end their relationship with Webb after the lobbyist took to social media to criticize the school officials.

In his filing Friday, Paine admitted that he talked with ACT officials — including ACT CEO Marten Roorda – but denied Webb’s allegations that he tried to influence Roorda and others to cancel their contract with Webb.

“Defendant Paine admits that several times in 2018 and 2019 he did call ACT officials and did speak with the CEO,” Paine’s attorneys stated. “Defendant Paine denies the remainder of the allegations … of (Webb’s) complaint.”

The West Virginia Department of Education contracts with ACT competitor SAT for the state’s annual high school standardized test used to track a student’s college and career readiness. Webb has been an outspoken critic of state school officials in Twitter for using SAT instead of ACT.

Webb claims that Paine and Barth, the assistant superintendent and leader of the Division of Teaching and Learning, made contact multiple times with ACT officials regarding Webb’s social media attacks, going so far as to threaten ending all future business with ACT if they didn’t dump Webb.

“This case is about the abuse of power,” according to Webb’s complaint. “Top officials at the West Virginia Department of Education … have used their government power to threaten and intimidate a private citizen…for exercising his First Amendment rights-specifically, for expressing his political views and advocating for a client and state vendor that Paine and Barth oppose.”

Webb has been a lobbyist in the state for many years through his company Capitol Advocates LLC. His most recent filing with the state Ethics Commission lists 11 clients, including ACT.

According to Webb’s complaint, during a March 5 phone call with ACT CEO Roorda, Paine allegedly complained about Webb.

“During the call, Paine told the CEO that Webb had a ‘bad reputation’ and that ACT needed to ‘get rid of him’ or the department would disqualify ACT from participating in future bids due to ACT having an ‘unscrupulous’ person associated with their company,” according to the complaint.

Webb’s attorneys said that Roorda told Paine he should file a complaint against Webb with the Ethics Commission. Paine then told Roorda that ACT would be disqualified from bidding on any future requests for proposals the next time the statewide assessment went out for bid.

Paine, in his response, admitted to the March 5 phone call with Roorda and admitted that Roorda told Paine to file a complaint against Webb with the Ethics Commission, but otherwise refuted the rest of Webb’s allegations.

Webb is requesting a jury trial, compensatory and consequential damages, attorneys’ fees, interest, declaratory and injunctive relief. Paine and Barth are asking that the case be dismissed.

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