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Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., found a way to get something passed unanimously, despite what he rebukes as “romper-room behavior” of political polarization in the Senate.
In an interview Saturday with Fox News Digital, Justice detailed how he worked around the Senate’s bitter partisan divide to get a monument honoring late World War II Medal of Honor hero Hershel “Woody” Williams onto the National Mall.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, never in my life seen anything to where it is, it is so preposterous,” Justice lamented. “You know, no one could make any sense out of what in the world is going on a lot of times.”
“I don’t know why we don’t talk to one another,” he added. “I don’t know why we’re disrespectful to one other.”
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Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Hershel Woody Williams salutes while standing at the new Gold Star Families Memorial Monument in downtown Pensacola on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020. (Gregg Pachkowski/Imagn)
Using good, old-fashioned dialogue, Justice’s effort ultimately succeeded in getting his first Senate law passed for his late friend. The Williams National Medal of Honor Monument Location Act directs the National Medal of Honor monument to a prominent location within the Reserve on the National Mall.
The legislation is Justice’s first bill as a senator. It honors Williams, a West Virginia native who received the Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism during the Battle of Iwo Jima and who was the last surviving World War II Medal of Honor recipient before his death in 2022 at age 98. The monument will honor Williams by name while commemorating Medal of Honor recipients as a whole.
The House approved the measure on Aug. 31 after the Senate passed it unanimously in March. The legislation is now awaiting Trump’s signature.
“We’re really hopeful he’s going to sign it this coming week,” Justice said. “There’s been a lot to make all that happen and everything, and I can’t be more proud.”
Justice, describing the partisan fight in the interview, said the path to unanimous approval was anything but smooth.
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Hershel “Woody” Williams, shown here at Slugger Field in Louisville, Ky. on Aug. 22, 2021, was the last living Medal of Honor recipient from World War II before he passed away June 29, 2022, at the age of 98. (Sam Upshaw Jr./Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK)
“I mean, we had it shot down,” he said, adding, but “I just wouldn’t turn it loose.”
“And the reason I wouldn’t turn loose is because it was just real simple: I mean Woody’s unbelievable, or was unbelievable, that’s for sure. But all these Medal of Honor recipients and everything, the ones we’ve lost and all those that are still living, they are so deserving.”
Justice described how the measure initially had become caught up in the same divisiveness that has locked up the Senate on a much broader range of issues.
“All we managed to do is keep a food fight going to where – because it was a Republican thing or Republican Jim Justice introducing – well, I’m telling you, if I’m a Democrat, by God, we’re not gonna let that happen and everything,” he lamented. “And then it’s just, it’s the same thing on both sides. Way, way, way too much for a guy that’s got white hair and wants to try to get things done.”
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Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., and English bulldog, Babydog, combined to work a bipartisan bill pass unanimously in the bitterly divided Senate. (Office of Senator Jim Justice)
Justice said the breakthrough came just before he was preparing to take the matter to the Senate floor with four Medal of Honor recipients present.
“I was about three feet from going into the Senate chambers,” Justice recalled. “And we sat down right there, you know, kind of on the steps and really just started talking.”
The senator was Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. The two serve together on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Justice said he had developed a personal relationship with Heinrich over the years, including through Justice’s well-known bulldog, Babydog.
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Members of Congress pay respects to Chief Warrant Officer 4 Hershel Woodrow “Woody” Williams as his remains lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington on July 14, 2022. (Tom Williams)
“I said, Martin, I don’t understand. I mean, how in the world can we do this?” Justice said. “And I said, Martin, you know, I’m getting ready to go on the floor and it’s not going to be good. It’s not gonna be good for you. It’s not going to good for a lot of folks and everything. A lot of people are going to be upset. A lot of people are going to be really sad.”
Justice said he appealed directly to Heinrich to find a way forward.
“And I just said, Martin, I don’t know any way to tell it other than just to tell you the truth. And you’re a good guy. And I don’t know why in the world we just can’t talk with one another.”
Heinrich responded with a blunt explanation of the broader problem, Justice said.
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The coffin of Hershel Woodrow “Woody” Williams is carried down the East Front Center Steps of the U.S. Capitol during a ceremony after lying in honor in Washington, D.C., on July 14, 2022. (Anna Rose Layden)
“And he looked right at me and he said, you know, people here don’t talk to one another,” Justice said. “And I really appreciate you doing that and I’m not going to object.”
Justice said the measure then moved “in three minutes, boom, boom, boom, done.”
“It was an amazing moment really, and like I said Martin’s a good guy, and I just think that maybe we could all learn from that just a little bit,” he said.
“Now we’re going to honor, you know, another great, unbelievable, courageous group of people and it’s way, way, way overdue.”
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Thousands of fans flooded onto the National Mall for the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, many getting their first taste of IndyCar or even live motorsports in general. (Photo by Hasan Akbas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
On other issues in the Senate still in gridlock, Justice urged dialogue like that above and for everyone to “grow up.”
“Why in the world would you carry on with just childishness, and in all fairness, that’s what it is,” Justice said. “You can’t make sense of it. There’s no point in us trying to do that. This is Romper Room behavior. And if there’s anything in the world I could do, I wish to goodness that I could tell everybody, you know let’s grow up a lot. Let’s absolutely grow up and let’s behave.”
Justice said he does not expect the Senate’s structural problems to be fixed easily, pointing to the 60-vote threshold associated with overcoming a filibuster and arguing that lawmakers have little incentive to change a system that protects the political status quo.
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Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., was one of the key members of the left to help get Sen. Jim Justice’s Hershel Woody Williams bill passed unanimously in the Senate. (Elizabeth Frantz)
“You’ve got a lot of people there that have never had a job,” Justice said. “They’ve been there forever, and they’ve never made a payroll.”
He said his former chief of staff Brian Abraham once gave him an even simpler explanation for the paralysis.
“I said, guys, we’re really missing something here because we can really get stuff done here and everything,” Justice recalled. “And he looked right at me and he said, you don’t understand, do you?
“People here don’t wanna get something done. All they want to do is just keep it going. Round and round it goes. Fundraiser, fundraiser, fundraiser. Round and around it goes, get reelected, get reelected.”
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Justice said the monument fight was especially important because Williams himself embodied the opposite of that kind of self-interest.
“Woody Williams was all about us,” he said. “Woody Williams was never about Woody Williams. And he just was an amazing man. I got to know him really well, and we became really good friends.”
Williams’ Medal of Honor citation stems from his actions on Iwo Jima, where, under intense enemy fire, he used a flamethrower to destroy Japanese positions and help clear a path for advancing Marines.
Justice said the symbolism of the monument extends beyond Williams and into future generations.
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“Now, I’m going to take them there,” Justice said of his future descendants. “I’m going to show them this and tell them, maybe I was only a grain of sand, but I had something to do with this. And I really stood up hard for it and everything. We got it done.”
