Recently, at another event where West Virginia Governor and U.S. Senate candidate Jim Justice arrived slow as usual, the usual political posturing of shaking hands, being affable and carrying out his ceremonial duties was on full display. Governor Justice loves this part of his job, the activity and excitement of the crowds traveling around and “pressing on the flesh,” as the politicians of aged called it.
Such events also provide the West Virginia press, which constantly slanders Justice, a chance to ask a few questions. For example, what the current relationship is between Governor Justice during major events and details with the Jim Justice administration.
“If you really believe that I don’t show up or I’m not in the office or whatever — I’m out with people every day,” the governor noted as reported by Erin Beck. “I don’t just sit in an office down here and get a gold star for perfect attendance.”
Which, to be fair, works pretty well in the final days of a second term as governor. Personality plays a massive role in a state that has always preferred its politicians to have colorful personalities. Justice is undoubtedly a people’s person, affable when he wants to be, clever enough to realize that Babydog is the greatest political weapon in West Virginia politics since Robert C. Byrd’s violin, and completely comfortable calling the shots have and play the role of the massive man.
The US Senate is not about personality. All 100 U.S. Senators have massive personalities, massive brands, political organizations, wealth, power and influence. Most people consider themselves to be more essential than the president. About a dozen U.S. senators are actively working to become president at any one time. The upper chamber of our American legislature is an elite political club, second only to the presidency itself.
The desire to be in an exclusive club is consistent with the book we have on justice. The problem is that this particular club also has a job to do.
The benefits of being a U.S. senator come automatically upon election to office, but occupying one of a hundred hands on the levers of power requires an entirely different kind of politics. Power in the U.S. Senate comes slowly by doing the work in committee and politically maneuvering your way to committee chairs to control money, investigations and influence. Title comes by election, but power comes by attendance and churn.
West Virginia has long had very effective U.S. Senators who have mastered the Senate game. Democrat Robert C. Byrd brought the federal bacon so far home that he became a living, breathing caricature, but he mastered the political secret sauce of railing against Washington with one hand while pulling federal money out of the country at a relentless pace with the other District milked. Democrat Jay Rockefeller, another West Virginia governor who later became a U.S. senator, spent 20 years in the upper chamber, handling elaborate issues such as co-passing the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and expanding medical treatment and coverage Veterans Affairs. retirement US Senator Joe ManchinIW.Va., has often wielded so much influence in recent years that when a crucial swing vote came around, the question on the issues was: “What do we have to give Joe to make this happen?”
Shelley Moore Capito, Jay Rockefeller’s successor and soon-to-be senior U.S. senator from the great state of West Virginia, is another example.
“You can’t deny that she gets things done.” according to Eric Garciasenior congressional correspondent for The Independent. “She’s on the Appropriations Committee…there’s the saying, there’s Democrats, there’s Republicans and then there’s appropriators. Appropriators are the ones who create the budgets, they put all the money aside. When members of Congress do all their work, it’s the appropriators who sit down and decide how much money gets spent. And it is also very effective at bringing home money. With the latest budgets and resources, she brings home a lot of money.”
Appropriation is not glamorous, but it is indispensable. Committee meetings are no fun, but they require working your way up to committee chair and steering policy. Everyday, routine Senate voting is a repetitive activity that doesn’t lend itself well to social media posts.
But that’s the job of a U.S. senator. That’s what makes Jim Justice’s recent comments so revealing: “If you really believe this nonsense about me not showing up, or not being in the office, or whatever… I’m not just sitting down here in an office.” Working in the U.S. Senate involves sitting in an office, in committee rooms and meetings, and managing a staff of staff and researchers. A U.S. senator has high-profile moments in front of the camera, but it doesn’t legislate, provide money, or benefit the state the senator represents.
“That’s why Robert Byrd had so many damn things named after him in West Virginia.” Garcia reminds. “Poorer states, states with lower income, fewer high earners, need federal money to thrive.”
From an executive office like governor of a state with a genial supermajority legislature, after a lifetime of total control over a sprawling family business empire, to a junior member in the tightly controlled United States, which will see major leadership changes in turbulent times that would be a major one for anyone Conversion. For Justice, whose towering personality, engaging demeanor and baby-dog persona were more than enough to win him multiple statewide offices, the hustle and bustle of Washington, D.C. will be a very strange, hostile up-to-date world to navigate. How well Justice navigates this world in the office he will soon be elected to will depend largely on how present and engaged he is. How committed he is to mastering the often banal and archaic machinations of the self-proclaimed “largest advisory body in the world.”
The success of Jim Justice, the U.S. Senator, will have a measurable measure, a blunt measure that polite people don’t like to talk about, but which is the political reality on which many depend: how much money flows into West Virginia. Money that is distributed not because of his personality, but because of his presence in positions of power to pass these funds on to the people who elected him to do so.
All the folksy sayings and baby dog pressers in the world won’t make a single red cent in federal funding for Toby and Edith, Jim Justice’s favorite allegorical West Virginians. Dedication to the grinding craft of being an effective U.S. Senator. For a state that has become very accustomed to highly effective U.S. senators and the national influence and vital funding that that effectiveness brings, the possibility of eliminating that standard — in the words and deeds of the justices — is a very real one Possibility.
