CHARLESTON, W.Va. — On June 14, at the most frustrating point of a long slog to pass a state budget in special session, Gov. Jim Justice invited reporters in for one-on-one interviews about the situation.
The state Senate had just abandoned Justice’s preferred revenue plan and passed a budget with cuts to higher education and Medicaid.
Justice generally blamed Democrats, then the members of his own party and in the minority of both the House and Senate, for failing to generate enough votes to pass his proposal.
One at a time, reporters visited the governor’s office. Chief of Staff Nick Casey and spokesman Grant Herring — now both departed after the governor’s party switch this month — sat in on the discussions.
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In each interview, the governor told a version of Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” in which Justice was a fisherman struggling to get a prize catch — the budget plan — into his boat. But, he said, Democrats cut the line.
Late in the interview with MetroNews, Justice was asked if he was frustrated enough to switch parties.
This is what Justice said:
At the time, he blamed both Republicans and Democrats. He said he did not want to consider a party switch at the moment, saying he had too much on his plate. But he didn’t rule it out either.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to get into that. You know, I have real issues with what the Republicans are doing as well,” Justice said then.
“All I’m saying from the Democrats’ standpoint is, to stand back and say ‘Well, we can’t do anything because we’re the minority and the majority really and truly rules the day,’ well in this situation the majority really wasn’t ruling the day. They had the key to Emerald City, and that was horribly disappointing to me. And that was horribly disappointing to me.
“But as far as switching parties, doing this and that and everything, I’ve got real issues going on with both sides of the coin on that.”
This Aug. 3, at a rally for President Donald Trump in Huntington, Justice announced that he would, in fact, switch parties.
“With lots of prayers and lots of thoughts, today I tell you as West Virginians I can’t help you any more being a Democratic governor,” Justice announced to cheers. “So tomorrow, I will be changing my registration to Republican.”
Justice said he drew inspiration from Trump, with whom he is close.
And he again blamed legislative Democrats, taking a similar line to what he’d stated two months earlier, but this time leaving out criticism for Republicans.
“Let me just say it as bluntly as I can say it. West Virginia, at the altar when we had it done — like it or not like it — the Democrats walked away from me,” he said.
The day after that, Aug. 4, in an appearance on MetroNews’ “Talkline,” Justice said he told chief of staff Nick Casey — a former state Democratic chairman — as far back as a month earlier that he was planning to make a party change.
Justice, however, said he had hired his staff based on their skillset rather than party affiliation. He said those who felt comfortable staying could stay.
Then this Monday at midday, Justice called Casey to fire him. Justice alluded to disappointment over what happened in the Legislative session, but Casey has now said several times it was all about party affiliation.
Casey, in an email sent today, confirmed that the governor had talked of a party switch weeks ago but didn’t firm up the decision until it was announced at the Trump rally.
“He talked about it both during and after the session,” Casey wrote in the email.
Casey added, “He talked about it but never took action until that Trump for America rally.”