By JAKE ZUCKERMAN
Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — After a dramatic announcement Thursday that he was switching parties, Gov. Jim Justice said Friday he did it because Democrats in the Legislature abandoned him.
Speaking Friday at a news conference at the Capitol, Justice said he made the switch because Democrats would not support his push for tax reform during the special legislative session.
Justice said Democrats wouldn’t cooperate with the tax overhaul because of the party that wrote the legislation — Republican — not because of the idea itself.
“The people that are in office, those 36 people, dropped the ball, and I don’t have any confidence that I’m going to be able to get those 36 people to not drop the ball and stay super united and everything if I were to remain a Democrat,” he said. “I can’t move us to where we need to move because I think there’s 36 people who drop the ball.”
He did not mention the House of Delegates by title, but there are 36 Democrats in that chamber.
Despite the switch, Justice said nothing is likely to change, raising questions of the strategy and purpose behind the move.
“Jim isn’t changing; Jim is still going to be Jim,” he said of himself. “Jim is still going to be the person that stands up with all in him for the common, everyday family. That’s all there is to it. Jim’s going to be rock solid behind the teachers and trying to help education. Jim is going to be exactly the same Jim that always was there.”
Along with the alleged lack of cooperation from fellow Democrats, Justice said he made the change because it has given him the ear of President Donald Trump and his administration.
He said he has spent more than seven hours in talks with White House staff and Trump himself over the past three weeks, and now has the president’s consideration on plans to bring back coal jobs and allocate federal funds to the state.
“I have a real relationship with the president of this country, and I really do believe he will step forward and try in every way to help West Virginia,” Justice said.
He noted, though, that he has not received any direct commitment from the White House besides to listen and seriously consider plans.
Despite switching his party affiliation to the GOP seven months into his first term, Justice said Friday that he has not received any letters of resignation from his staff or his Cabinet.
Although several of his key aides, some of whom have long histories in Democratic Party politics, did not attend Friday’s news conference, Justice said he didn’t hire them on any partisan basis and that they can leave as they see fit.
“I’ve never asked them if they were a Democrat or a Republican,” he said. “I picked them because I thought they were good. If they feel uncomfortable in any way, or they feel like they can’t serve me with all loyalty, if they feel the least bit uncomfortable, then they need to go. That’s all there is to it.”
Justice’s press secretary, Grant Herring, has worked on Democratic campaigns dating back to 2012. Justice’s chief of staff, Nick Casey, is a former chairman of the state Democratic Party and ran for Congress as a Democrat. Neither Herring nor Casey attended the news conference.
Justice made the party-switch announcement at a Trump rally in Huntington Thursday evening, to the surprise of most state political insiders. He said he wrote the speech he delivered, because his staff was not aware of the shakeup.
Justice said he spoke with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., about his decision Wednesday. He said Manchin took the news amicably.
“The long and short of it is, we did talk. [Manchin] said, ‘You know, on one hand, I’m disappointed, but I understand you wanting to move the state forward and trying in every way you possibly can.’ And he said, ‘Good friends will just disagree sometimes, and maybe we just disagreed on this one.’ ”
A spokesman for Manchin could not be reached to confirm the governor’s account. Manchin endorsed Justice in the 2016 Democratic primary.
Justice said he had not yet spoken with the state Republican Party Chairman Conrad Lucas. As recently as Thursday, the state party had sent out news releases and tweets critical of Justice.
“I have not,” Justice said when asked if he had chatted with Lucas since the announcement. “In fact, if Conrad was sitting right here, I don’t know that I would know him. So, I have not spoken with him.”
Looking forward, Justice said he is still considering calling the Legislature back for a special session to vote on legislation that would add fees to highways contracts to build up funds to combat the opioid epidemic and exempt veterans from income taxes. He said he won’t do it until the shock from switching parties dies down.
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