It seemed like almost every day last week there was some sort of new court filing regarding Gov. Jim Justice and his family businesses, including two filings that came out on West Virginia’s 160th birthday.

Much of this feels like deja vu as I feel like I wrote about similar issues about Justice in 2019 and 2020 going into his re-election for governor. And just like then, we have Justice telling the media and the public to not worry about his businesses.

I’ve been asked multiple times by people of all walks of life if I think Justice’s business and legal issues will derail his campaign for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. After all, many of these issues were known during Justice’s Democratic campaign for governor in 2016 and certainly used against him by Republican and Democratic opponents alike when he ran as a Republican for re-election in 2020.

Justice issues are widely known, yet he keeps winning by landslides. I’m often asked why we in the media continue to write about these issues knowing that voters don’t seem to mind or care. It’s certainly not because of any bias against the governor. And it’s frankly not much fun writing about financial issues of businesses that employ hundreds of people.

I can’t decide for you whether you should care about the hundreds of millions of dollars of debt Justice has personally guaranteed, the millions his companies owe in mine safety penalties, or the other businesses that have had to take Justice to court for not paying them. Only you can decide whether those are issues that should disqualify someone from holding higher office.

The only thing I can do is make sure you are aware. My job is to lead the horses to water, but not to make them drink. I do think that this information should be known. Justice has been governor for more than six years and only seven of the 111 businesses he owns are in blind trusts, meaning Justice put those businesses in the hands of a third party.

Justice has said he is not involved in the day-to-day operations of his businesses, yet he personally guaranteed loans for those businesses in excess of hundreds of millions of dollars while also working as governor. He remains the largest shareholder of his family businesses and most of those businesses are not in blind trusts. And other than trips once or twice a week to Charleston, Justice remains at his home in Lewisburg with staff running day-to-day business in the governor’s office.

In fact, there is a question as to how much of Justice’s time is spent governing. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has an active lawsuit in Kanawha County Circuit Court seeking Justice’s daily schedules during his time as governor going back to 2017.

All of this information you should know. But what you do with it is up to you.

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Friday is the end of the second quarter campaign finance period in West Virginia, with reports due to the Secretary of State’s Office by July 7, so the push is on for candidates for statewide office to raise last-minute dollars to make their reports look good.

It was pointed out to me on Twitter that Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, one of the several Republican candidates for governor of West Virginia, is not only raising money for his 2024 primary, but appears to be using his campaign to retire previously accrued campaign debts.

Morrisey created a joint fundraising committee called Team Morrisey in 2019. As of April, the joint fundraising committee includes his 2024 campaign for governor, his 2012 campaign committee for his first run for Attorney General, his 2016 primary and general election campaigns for Attorney General, the Blue and Gold Fund, and the Upshur County Republican Executive Committee.

According to a fundraising plea I saw for Team Morrisey, an individual donor (who hasn’t already exceeded the various contribution limits) could theoretically donate $22,600 to Morrisey, with the following amounts going in a specific order: $2,800 to the primary race for governor, $1,000 to help retire Morrisey’s 2012 attorney general campaign debt, $2,000 (or $1,000 each) toward retiring Morrisey’s 2016 attorney general primary and general campaign debt, $5,000 for the Blue and Gold Fund, $10,000 for the Upshur County REC, and then $2,800 for Morrisey’s general election race for governor.

It’s well known that Morrisey has a bad habit of accruing campaign debt, but it is amazing to me he is still sitting on campaign debt from a decade ago. The Blue and Gold Fund is based out of Massachusetts and is connected to Red Curve Solutions, which appears to be a political consulting company that specializes in fundraising. I have no idea why Morrisey is raising money for the Upshur County REC.

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Lastly, I think creating coalitions to support certain candidates can be smart. Secretary of State Mac Warner, another Republican candidate for West Virginia governor, now has three coalitions: veterans, women, and now gun owners. The three coalitions have at least one representative from all 55 counties.

But one thing I’ve noticed is there is a lot of overlap between the three coalitions, with many of the same people involved in at least two of them. Coalitions can be great and I get there can be some overlap, but I think they lose their effectiveness if the same people are involved. It gives the perception to voters that there is a wide base of support when in reality it is just many of the same supporters.