Gov. Justice Delivers his 2023 West Virginia State of the State Address

CHARLESTON, WV – Gov. Jim Justice presented his 2023 State of the State Address to the West Virginia Legislature on Wednesday evening.

Here is the transcript of his speech in its entirety:

(Editor's note: some grammatical errors may be present in this transcript. A fully edited version will be posted to the Governor's website tomorrow)

GOVERNOR JUSTICE: Okay, we’ve got a lot to talk about tonight. The first thing that I want to be sure that we're talking about, right off the get go is just this. I was early getting here tonight. Pretty good stuff. Now, think about this. We're honoring a great man, Bob Kiss. I got to tell you this is, full confession.

Literally, I was at the mansion. The last time I'd seen my speech, Cathy had it, and all of a sudden, I get over here and nobody's got it. And if we hadn't honored Bob Kiss, you would have been sitting waiting on me a long time. And so literally, it's an honor beyond belief to be with you. And there's so much, so much good going on in this state right now. It's hard. It's hard to get it all in. That's just all there is to it. Now, with all that being said, I've got to do this. I've got to say one thing. You know, Mr. Speaker, and Mr. President, Babydog says she's really sorry she couldn't make it tonight. But she's gonna get a tub of popcorn and watch it on TV. But thank you so much in every way.

And I absolutely, if I could just say this. It is an incredible day to be a West Virginian. You know, I like to always honor our First Lady, my daughter Jill is with her. And my son and his and our daughter in law. Jay and Catherine. Catherine had a little bit of a blood pressure issue today and, and so they kind of bowed out. But nevertheless, thank you all so much for all you do all the time.

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