West Virginia Democrats are calling for Gov. Jim Justice to drop out as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate over a series of financial conflicts, particularly the failure of the Justice-owned Greenbrier Hotel to ensure health insurance for employees.
“It’s one thing to default on a bank loan or a tax obligation or even a fine from a regulatory agency,” Democratic Party Chairman Mike Pushkin stated in a release distributed to West Virginia news outlets. “It’s another thing altogether to fail to pay the health care premiums for your workers with money that isn’t even yours. Because of his negligence, hundreds of workers and their families may lose their health care coverage.
“The governor can’t blame this on politics, he can’t blame it on accounting error, he can’t blame it on anyone else but himself. His financial house of cards is falling down around him, making him a terminally compromised candidate. Under these circumstances, he can’t continue to seek election to the United States Senate. He has become a national embarrassment.”
The Justice campaign did not respond right away to an invitation to provide reaction. In recent weeks, MetroNews has not been permitted to take part in state administration briefings led by the governor because of Justice’s objections to questions about financial conflicts.
This week, employees of The Greenbrier Hotel received a letter indicating they could lose their health insurance coverage one week from now because the resort owners have fallen four months and millions of dollars behind on their health insurance payments.
The Greenbrier Hotel Corp. is made up of close relatives and associates of the governor. The letter was addressed to Adam Long, treasurer of The Greenbrier Hotel Corp. and also the governor’s son-in-law.
The Greenbrier has provided no statement about the lack of health insurance coverage. The Justice family also has put out no public statement representing the hotel.
Lawyers for the health insurance company, the Amalgamated National Health Fund, said the owners are delinquent on $2.4 million in health premium contributions, with another $1.2 million in premiums soon due. Lawyers for the Health Fund say those delinquent contributions include money that was deducted from workers’ pay but not remitted to the insurer for coverage.
In reaction, the Greenbrier Council of Labor Unions, which represents workers at the resort, stated that “we are concerned to learn that the Greenbrier has not even remitted to the Fund the Employees’ share of the Health Benefit contribution, which the Greenbrier has been deducting from the employees’ paychecks.”
Peter Bostic, chairman of the Greenbrier Council of Labor Unions, continued by saying, “The Greenbrier’s delinquency has put our members’ health care benefits in severe jeopardy and is morally and legally wrong.
“Our members have met their obligation by working hard every day and paying their portion to The Greenbrier. The Greenbrier has neglected its obligation to its employees.”
The health insurance coverage for workers could run next Tuesday, according to the letter from the provider.
The next day, Aug. 28, kicks off on of The Greenbrier’s annual major events, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting & Business Summit.
Next week also marks a possible foreclosure sale on The Greenbrier after lender JPMorgan Chase declared default. Lawyers for the Justice family this week filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to halt that sale scheduled for Tuesday.
Justice gained goodwill and steps toward statewide name recognition when he bought The Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in spring 2009. Justice, a two-term governor, is now a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and is considered the front-runner because of his broad name recognition and West Virginia’s recent voting trends.
Justice has contended that the financial problems, in particular the forced auction of The Greenbrier, are the result of political scheming by forces who don’t want him to help tip the U.S. Senate majority to Republicans.
“At the end of the day, it has to be driven by something,” Justice said last week during an administration news briefing. “I truly do believe that it is a political play. Everybody in the world that I talk to says the same thing. It is a political play. I’m running for the U.S. Senate and with all honesty it carries a terrific burden.
“I truly believe with all in me if I’m not running for U.S. Senate, you’d have never heard about this.” Pushkin, in a telephone call Tuesday, countered that the financial problems are of Justice’s own making and that people are entitled to make political judgments about how his family businesses have handled the debts.
“You know what, if you or I handled our business like Jim Justice does, we’d be in a lot of trouble. Everybody knows that,” Pushkin said.
“He’s not getting singled out because of politics; he’s getting special treatment because he’s the governor of West Virginia. So he needs to get out of the race for Senate and focus on running his business because right now the people who work for him at America’s resort, they’re wondering if they’re going to be able to see a doctor if they get sick.”
