Background and career
James Conley Justice II (born April 27, 1951) is an American politician and businessman serving since 2025 as the junior United States senator from West Virginia. A member of the Republican Party, he served from 2017 to 2025 as the 36th governor of West Virginia. Justice was once a billionaire, but his net worth was estimated at $664.2 million in 2025, making him the richest U.S. senator as of that year. He inherited a coal mining business from his father that included 94 companies. He and his family own the Greenbrier, a luxury resort and National Historic Landmark in White Sulphur Springs. In 2015, Justice announced his candidacy for governor in 2016. Although a registered Republican before running for governor, he ran as a Democrat and defeated the Republican nominee, Bill Cole. Less than seven months after taking office, Justice switched back to the Republican Party after announcing his plans at a rally with President Donald Trump in the state. He was reelected in 2020. Justice was elected to the Senate in 2024, winning the seat previously held by Joe Manchin. Defeating U.S. representative Alex Mooney in the primary and the Democratic nominee, former Wheeling mayor Glenn Elliott, in the general election, Justice became the first Republican to win that seat since 1956.
James Conley Justice II was born to James Conley Justice and Edna Ruth (née Perry) Justice in Charleston, West Virginia. He grew up in Raleigh County, West Virginia, graduating from Woodrow Wilson High School in Beckley in 1969. He enrolled at the University of Tennessee on an athletic scholarship for golf but transferred to Marshall University. At Marshall, he was a two-year captain on the Thundering Herd golf team. He earned his bachelor's degree and Master of Business Administration from Marshall.
After college, Justice went into the family agriculture business. He founded Bluestone Farms in 1977, which now operates 50,000 acres (20,000 ha) of farmland, and is the leading producer of grain on the East Coast of the United States. During that time, he also developed Stoney Brook Plantation, a 15,000-acre hunting and fishing preserve in Monroe County. Justice is a seven-time national corn growing champion. After his father's death in 1993, Justice inherited ownership of Bluestone Industries and Bluestone Coal Corporation. In 2009, he sold some of his coal business to the Russian company Mechel for $568 million. In 2015, after a huge drop in the price of coal led Mechel to close some of the mines, he bought the business back for $5 million. Since buying back the mine from Mechel, Justice reopened several of the mines and hired over 200 miners. As of 2014, Justice owned 70 active mines in five states. His charitable donations included $25 million to the James C. Justice National Scout Camp at Summit Bechtel Reserve, $5 million to Marshall University, and $10 million to the Cleveland Clinic. Justice's mining companies have been scrutinized for alleged cases of safety violation and unpaid taxes; in 2016, NPR called him the nation's "top mine safety delinquent". Justice allegedly owed millions of dollars to the government in back taxes and unpaid coal mining fees and fines. Two debt-related lawsuits were settled in 2019, and in 2020 mining companies Justice or his family owned agreed to pay $5 million in delinquent safety fines. Separately, Justice agreed in 2025 to pay $5.2 million in overdue personal income taxes that, according to the Justice Department, originated in 2009. Before taking office as governor, Justice resigned from all the executive positions he held. He placed his daughter Jill in charge of the Greenbrier and his son Jay in charge of his mining and agriculture businesses. He said he would place all his assets in a blind trust but that the process would take time because of their complexity. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Justice and his family's businesses received between $11 million and $24 million in aid from the Paycheck Protection Program. His luxury resort, the Greenbrier Hotel Corporation, received a loan of between $5 million and $10 million. The company did not promise to retain any jobs in exchange for the loan, which the Greenbrier would have to repay if it did not use at least 60% of the funds for payroll. According to a 2020 ProPublica investigation, Justice had paid more than $128 million in judgments and settlements over his businesses' unpaid bills. In October 2023, a federal court ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to seize and sell a helicopter the company owned to pay an $8 million judgment granted to a creditor. In October 2021, Forbes estimated Justice's net worth at $513.3 million. By January 2025, Forbes reported that Justice's net worth had fallen below zero due to over $1 billion in debt. Justice serves as the owner or chief executive officer of over 50 companies, including the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, which he bought for $20.5 million in 2009, preventing its bankruptcy.
In 2015, Justice declared his candidacy for governor of West Virginia in the 2016 election as a member of the Democratic Party. He had been a registered member of the Republican Party until changing his registration in February 2015. This was his first time running for political office. Justice was endorsed by the United Mine Workers. In May 2016, Justice won the Democratic nomination for governor. During the general election campaign, Justice campaigned on improving the state's track record on education, encouraging the continued usage of coal, increasing tourism, and tackling the budget deficit and the opioid crisis. He refused to endorse Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in that year's presidential election, citing her stance on phasing out coal energy. Justice defeated Republican nominee Bill Cole in the November general election.
In January 2019, Justice declared his candidacy for reelection. This time, he ran as a Republican, having changed his party registration after an August 2017 rally with President Donald Trump. He defeated multiple challengers in the Republican primary. In the general election campaign, Justice focused on his COVID-19 response, the state's budget surplus, and his work on the substance abuse crisis. Several polls had him leading by a large margin over Kanawha County commissioner Ben Salango in the months preceding Election Day. On November 3, 2020, he defeated Salango with over 63% of the vote to Salango's 30%. With his win, he became the first West Virginian Republican gubernatorial candidate to win since Cecil H. Underwood in 1996 and the first GOP incumbent to win a second term since Arch A. Moore Jr. in 1972. The United Mine Workers endorsed Salango after having endorsed Justice in 2016, but Justice was endorsed by the businessmen's association West Virginia Coal Association, which said he had "worked to protect the miners, increase coal production, and explore innovative ways to use coal for new products and downstream job opportunities".
Justice took office as governor on January 16, 2017. He is known for using colorful metaphors and digs at political opponents. To improve West Virginia's budget situation, he has proposed raising the state's revenue by $450 million, primarily by increasing the consumer sales taxes, reinstituting the business and occupation (B & O) tax, and establishing a "rich man's" tax. He also opposed plans to cut health and education spending. On April 13, 2017, while vetoing a budget bill passed by the West Virginia legislature, Justice said the bill was "nothing more than a bunch of political you-know-what" and showed a prop featuring cow manure on a print copy of the bill. On August 3, 2017, Justice announced that he had rejoined the Republican Party. He made the announcement at a rally hosted by President Donald Trump in Huntington and also confirmed his support for Trump. Justice said he was returning to the GOP because he could not support Trump as a member of the Democratic Party. The announcement came as a surprise to his own staff. This also made Justice the first Republican governor of West Virginia since Cecil Underwood in 2001.
