You Really Need this Explained to You?

Redeye at Left in Alabama asks the most bizarre question I have seen in quite awhile…why are Paul Hubbert and Joe Reed so distrusted? After reading this (and peeling myself off the ceiling) I began to think of how to construct an answer. In the meantime, many other progressives have offered reasoning to Redeye in the comment section at LIA, but let me add some thoughts.

First, if you had seen enough from other progressives and fellow Democrats to warrant asking them to stop and think, maybe you are the one that needs to reconsider the basis for your belief. Saying that Hubbert and Reed are just the “elected leaders” of the teacher’s union is like saying a hungry lion is “just a cat”. If Hubbert was just an elected union leader, most people wouldn’t even know who he was. Paul Hubbert is considered the de facto governor for a reason.

Those reasons include:

1. The belief that he can follow through on the threats and promises he makes. Hubbert, Reed and the AEA do not “persuade” legislators that their position is the right one. They use the political action committee that, in effect, holds hostage the hard-earned dollars of teachers all over this state to hold a hammer over legislators heads that will be dropped on them if they don’t do what the AEA wants. Because of the dysfunctional state Democratic party (an issue for another day) it is next to impossible to get elected as a Democrat to a state office without AEA’s money. So those legislators feel beholden.

(NOTE: I realize I may lose any credibility with some of my friends on the left by saying some of these things, but this is what I honestly believe. Now, this isn’t to say that I’m any happier with the power that Alabama Power and ALFA wield over legislators on the other side of the aisle, but the influence is not nearly as pronounced, yet.)

2. Consistently and repeatedly Hubbert has attempted to put the interests of school employees over the interests and needs of Alabama students.

3. While Alabama teachers have been among the highest paid in the country (NOTE: This was the first shocking fact I learned that led me to begin investigating Hubbert’s influence not long after moving here), our education system continues to lag behind in measures of educational achievement. What’s worse, Alabama continues to be deficient in funding so many other areas of its budget because Paul Hubbert has managed to keep entire pots of revenue (the income tax at the top of the list) set entirely aside for education.

4. He helps keep in place an antiquated Tenure law, and then claims that it’s just “poor legal advice” and not the law that is the problem.

5. And finally, Bradley Byrne and Artur Davis have both discussed in their campaigns that one of the reasons Hubbert is able to have influence is because he’s smart about consistently pitting K-12 and Higher Education in direct conflict. As long as the leaders in the executive and legislative branches continue to have to mediate internal squabbles within the education lobby and structure, we can never have the larger discussions we need to have about the overall needs of our educational system.

The list goes on, and I have lots of other stories and innuendo, but I purposely settled on these points, because I believe they are factual and incontrovertible (consistently reported in the press as well as in conversation to me and many others).

UPDATE: And if you need yet more reasons, countrycat makes a GREAT point in the comments at LIA about what Joe Reed tried to do to Patricia Todd (one of my favorite state legislators).

UPDATE 2: Please do take the opportunity to read Redeye’s response over at LIA to my post…talk about having the wool pulled over your eyes. The person who offers not a single link or piece of evidence in either his original post or in his follow-up wants to laugh at my sources? Go ahead! The facts are the facts my friend. His response to Alabama teachers being so highly paid is, well if their so highly paid “why do we have such a hard time recruiting and retaining teachers”. A) where’s your source for that information? and B) even it was true, it’s obviously NOT teacher pay, because the FACT is we pay better than most states! And his response to the tenure law is that bad teachers get fired all the time? Name one…I dare you. If a school board won’t even fire a convicted criminal who committed sex offenses with a student, who will they fire?

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