Overview
- On Oct. 15 in the Hart Senate Office Building, Sen. Jim Justice hosted a sixth-birthday event for his English bulldog that drew more than 200 bipartisan attendees.
- Staff volunteers built a balloon arch and served 450 bulldog-shaped cake pops plus two cakes featuring Babydog’s face from a West Virginia baker.
- Justice cast the gathering as a needed morale boost during the shutdown and said he personally paid for the food and decorations.
- The festivities ended at 2:30 p.m. when the Senate cloakroom called Justice to an impending vote on a GOP stopgap measure, which later failed again.
- Babydog is a long-running fixture in Justice’s public life, including serving as the mascot for West Virginia’s 2021 COVID-19 vaccination sweepstakes.