Today is the day when Gov. Jim Justice hands over the wheel of the ship of state to the new governor, Patrick Morrisey. It is a true changing of the guard.

Justice spent the prior week handing out more checks, traveling on treacherous roadways due to the snow/ice storm, receiving a polite goodbye from lawmakers who seem very ready for the new Morrisey administration to take over, and giving one final closed virtual briefing to reporters.

I predict that Justice’s legacy over the last eight years will be mixed. There are many good things to point to, several bad things that took up the administration’s time, and much in between.

Even the good that can be pointed to usually has a flip-side. For example, Justice continues to praise the passage of the Roads to Prosperity road bonds. No doubt, the bonds were needed and it has led to major new road and bridge construction. But Justice celebrates the percentage the road bond passed, which was nearly 73%.

But I was assistant communications director for the Secretary of State’s Office when the road bond special election took place in the fall of 2017. Sure, it passed with 73% of the vote, but the voter turnout in that special election was just above 10%, and in Ritchie County it didn’t even pass. Justice praises the vote percentage but naturally ignores that the public in general showed little interest.

Justice came in office in 2017 facing mid-year revenue shortfalls and a nearly $500 million hole in the fiscal year 2018 general revenue budget. Since his first year, Justice kept future budget relatively flat, with artificially low revenue estimates that made end-of-fiscal-year tax revenue surpluses look like a “rocket ship ride.”

The motivation for lawmakers was seeing whether we could collect enough tax revenue above the flat budget to consider tax cuts. But for Justice, he could point and say that the state’s economic condition was improving by leaps and bounds when maybe the economy was improving more modestly than what was being presented.

How many times have you heard someone ask why Justice isn’t using the surplus for PEIA or for other things? Because most of those multi-million-dollar surpluses are already spoken for and appropriated. And with Morrisey already predicting a budget hole for fiscal year 2026 due to the 4% and 2% personal income tax cut that went into effect on Jan 1, one has to wonder whether Justice truly “minded the store.”

Justice talks about making education a centerpiece. While he deserves credit for putting more money into the School Building Authority, can anyone point to a policy that has improved the education attainment of students?

In his first term, Justice focused on the state’s massive substance use disorder crisis, creating the Jobs and Hope program, which by all accounts is a successful program, helping get people clean and back into the workforce. But while drug overdose deaths in the state and the nation are dropping after peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic, can anyone point to any other state-level efforts that has contributed to this?

Speaking of COVID, I think Justice is probably one of the best red-state governors who responded appropriately to the pandemic. Justice and his administration and pandemic team kept everyone informed daily, provided needed stats, and worked quickly to get vaccines to those who really needed them: seniors and those in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. I witnessed some of the ingenuity of state agencies, especially members of the West Virginia National Guard.

However, how many state departments and agencies have encountered multiple issues and controversies during his tenure? Corrections, the now-split DHHR, Commerce (anyone remember the issues with RISE WV?)

Just about the only cabinet-level departments with no controversies were Tourism, Veterans Assistance, Senior Services, and the National Guard. And Justice’s own personal business controversies were a constant distraction. I also suspect the incoming Morrisey administration is going to find other things that perhaps the outgoing Justice administration left behind to be cleaned up.

But here is what I will say personally about Jim Justice, whom I will also still have to cover as a U.S. Senator: Let there be no doubt that he truly loves the State of West Virginia and its people. Justice is a warm and funny person and a great retail politician in the vein of Joe Manchin and Bill Clinton. And I can say this as a reporter: he has never knowingly lied to me. He may not be able to answer a question, or he may avoid answering a question by giving me an answer I wasn’t looking for. But he has never flat-out lied to me.

I will say most of my challenges in covering Justice has come more from his administration, and most of that has happened more in the last two years or so. I won’t miss encountering those issues.

Now my attention turns to covering Gov. Patrick Morrisey, whom I wish much luck. I’m a reporter, but I’m a citizen and a taxpayer. I can cover fairly and critically, but also, I don’t want anyone involved in state government to fail. When they succeed, we all succeed.