Jim Justice (R-WV) took office in January 2025 after serving as WV governor; his wealth derives from inherited, privately-held coal companies and the Greenbrier resort, all pre-dating his Senate tenure, so that wealth is not scored here. There is no public record of individual-stock (STOCK Act) trading by Justice or his spouse; his holdings are operating businesses, not a traded equity portfolio, so stock-trading and net-worth-growth components score as no-data/low rather than as violations. The most substantive accountability concerns are office-adjacent rather than financial-disclosure-based: his family coal empire (run largely by his son Jay) carries thousands of alleged Clean Water Act violations, $8M+ in IRS liens, and a federal criminal probe that ProPublica reported the Trump DOJ shut down in early 2026 while Justice was a sitting senator and Trump ally — a serious correlation-not-proof signal of office benefit. He also missed 4.1% of votes (above the Senate median) and self-funded a private-jet commute, which he says he paid personally; no campaign-fund personal-use violation is documented.
Public record
In Congress since
2025
Committees
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Energy and Natural Resources Small Business and Entrepreneurship Senate Special Committee on Aging
Missed votes, 119th Congress
4.2% (38 of 913; median member 1.9%)
Campaign money, 2025–26 cycle
$80K raised · 43% from PACs & committees · $196K cash on hand FEC ↗
The stock-trading ban
Senate cloture on H.R. 7008, Sep 30, 2026
Yes
Cosponsored a ban bill
None
H.R. 7008 bans new stock purchases by members, spouses and dependents; it doesn't force sales of existing holdings. The Senate vote was on the version paired with the SAVE Act, which is why no Democrat voted yes. Full breakdown →
Amounts are the ranges members must report, not exact values. The STOCK Act requires a report within 45 days of a trade; "late" counts days past that deadline, measured to the filing date.
How the score breaks down
Stock self-tradinghousehold / spouseno data
25% weight
—
No public record of individual-stock STOCK Act trades by Justice or his spouse. His disclosed assets are privately-held operating companies (coal, agriculture, the Greenbrier), not a traded-equity portfolio; no Periodic Transaction Reports for individual stocks were found. Per rubric, absence of individual-stock trading scores 0.
Justice entered the Senate in Jan 2025 as a pre-office (former) billionaire; his wealth predates office and is explicitly not scored. Reporting since taking office shows his net worth falling (Forbes 'less than zero' due to $1B+ debt; $8M+ IRS liens; $5.2M overdue-tax settlement), i.e. no enrichment beyond salary/market attributable to his tenure. Too early and no evidence of office-driven growth.
Money → action alignmentcorrelation, not proof of any quid-pro-quo
20% weight
35
Correlation, not proof. Justice is a coal-industry figure who has consistently advanced fossil-fuel/coal positions; his own family coal businesses are a direct interest overlapping energy policy. The strongest signal is structural: ProPublica reported the Trump DOJ shut down a federal criminal Clean Water Act probe of his family's coal companies in early 2026 while he was a sitting GOP senator and Trump ally — an apparent benefit to his personal/family financial interest. This is a conflict-of-interest pattern, not documented vote-buying.
No documented misuse of campaign or leadership-PAC funds for personal benefit. Justice commutes from WV to DC on his personally-owned Cessna Citation V; he states he pays the cost out of his own pocket with no public or campaign funds involved. Largely self-funded campaign. Minimal score reflects only the unverified nature of the self-pay claim, not a found violation.
No staff-to-lobbyist pipeline documented, but significant family-business-tied-to-office concerns. His son Jay runs the family coal/mining empire and daughter Jill runs the Greenbrier; these family enterprises hold federal/state regulatory exposure (Clean Water Act violations, contempt orders, fines) that intersect with his office. A federal criminal probe of those family companies was reportedly halted by DOJ while he served — a family-interest-meets-office concern rather than classic lobbying.
Justice missed 34 of 827 roll-call votes (4.1%) Jan 2025–Jun 2026, above the ~2.8% Senate median, including skipping his first two floor votes the day after being sworn in (Laken Riley Act amendments). No evidence of heavy paid-speech/fundraising substituting for the job; modest score reflects the above-median absence rate only.
Sources behind this score: 7 news reporting · 3 reference database. Score = weighted average of the components that have data; the 2 without sourced evidence are excluded, never counted against the member. Methodology →
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