Paul Hubbert, longtime AEA head, dies at 78

Oct. 15--Paul Hubbert, the classroom teacher from Jasper who became one of the most powerful men in recent Alabama history, died Tuesday. He was 78.

In over four decades at the helm of the Alabama Education Association, Hubbert helped transform the organization into a strong and pioneering force in Alabama politics. By far the most powerful interracial group in state history, Hubbert and associate executive secretary Joe Reed expanded the AEA from 30,000 members in 1969 to about 100,000 at the time of his retirement. He ensured stronger support for teachers, support personnel and other education employees who were members through lawyers and field representatives there to help them when they were in need.

"The teachers of Alabama lost a true friend and a true champion," Reed said Tuesday night.

A cause of death was not immediately available. Hubbert had been fighting heart and kidney ailments.

The group also formed one of the first political action committees in the state, and influenced policy that went beyond classrooms and made the group a beacon to some and an enemy to others.

Survivors include Hubbert's wife, Ann; two daughters and several grandchildren.

"Our deepest condolences are extended to Mrs. Hubbert, their children and grandchildren," said AEA Executive Secretary Henry C. Mabry in a statement. "No one knows more than they how much Dr. Hubbert devoted his life to the service of the men and women working in Alabama's public schools. Dr. Hubbert was a great fighter for Alabama public schools and all public school children of this state."

Although twice unsuccessful as a candidate for the office, Hubbert went toe-to-toe with governors from George Wallace to Robert Bentley. His support could make a governor; his opposition could unmake a governor's agenda. Politicians sought his blessing before running for office; lawmakers and lobbyists needed it to get their bills through the Legislature.

"He was a good man, and a legend in Alabama politics," Bentley said in a statement Tuesday evening. "Dr. Hubbert worked extremely hard for the teachers and support personnel in our state. He was respected by Democrats and Republicans alike."

At the height of his power, state lawmakers would look into the gallery where Hubbert sat, seeking direction on how to vote. He was a sight as familiar as the furniture in the Legislature's budget committees, usually in a front-row seat just off center, and was frequently the first to speak on a proposal.

"From the dramatic improvements to public education, to the rise of AEA as a political force in Montgomery, Dr. Hubbert made a huge impact on our state," House Minority Leader Craig Ford, D-Gadsden, said in a statement Tuesday night." He fought for and won huge victories for educators, but he also fought for education and to make sure every child in Alabama had a chance to get a quality education.

Even in some years when there were cuts elsewhere in the budget, Hubbert was able to work with lawmakers to secure raises for education employees. If the proposal was legislation he felt hurt the association or its members -- such as charter schools or moves to take money from the Education Trust Fund budget -- Hubbert worked to kill it. More often than not, he succeeded. Both admirers and critics referred to him as "Governor Hubbert."

"I tip my hat to him -- he's good," said then-House Minority Leader and Alabama Republican Party Chairman Mike Hubbard in 2009, a frequent critic of both Hubbert and the AEA. "Most of the times we have done battle, he has come out the winner. He's strong. He has helped elect a lot of people."

Republicans frequently took aim at both Hubbert -- a longtime vice-chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party -- and the AEA, criticizing them both as liberal-leaning with questionable agendas.

But most people, even some of his most outspoken opponents, called Hubbert intelligent, convincing and straightforward. Hubbard, elected the first Republican Speaker of the House since the 1870s in 2010, said the AEA executive secretary was always honest with him, but "if you cross him, he comes after you."

"Legislators are scared of him, particularly Democrats," he said.

All agreed he was an effective advocate. Hubbard once described Hubbert's testimony before the House's Education Appropriations Committee as hypnotic.

"I almost start believing him," he said. "I have to snap out of it. He almost had me convinced."

Most political observers believed the power of Hubbert and the AEA had diminished, especially after Republicans took over the Legislature in 2010. But even late in his tenure, Hubbert and the AEA had a dramatic effect on the 2010 race for governor. A third party, funded by AEA's political action committee, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in negative ads targeting two-year college chancellor Bradley Byrne, who as a candidate, state senator and chancellor of the state's junior college system often lashed out at the AEA .

Byrne had the backing of most of Alabama's prominent Republicans and was considered the choice of the GOP establishment. He led a crowded field in the Republican primary election, but did not come close to securing the majority of the votes he needed to avoid a runoff. With the advertising barrage continuing against him into the runoff election, he lost to then-state Rep. Robert Bentley, R-Tuscaloosa.

Hubbert claimed credit for turning out Republican and independent members and pushing the election in favor of Bentley.

The strategy was not without critics: Some argued that some of the money directed at Byrne could have been used more effectively in legislative races, helping to stop the loss of some Democratic lawmakers who were supportive of the AEA.

Hubbard estimated in 2009 that as many as half of the teachers in the state were Republicans and did not support many of the positions that the AEA had taken in recent years, particularly against the use of the state's Fair Dismissal and Teacher Tenure laws, and double-dipping, which allows state lawmakers to also hold down a public job as a teacher, principal or administrator at a public school, two-year college or four-year college.

After riding large wins into the majority in 2010, Republican lawmakers quickly banned so-called double-dipping, beginning after the 2014 election, and overhauled the dismissal and tenure laws.Hubbert and the AEA successfully fought against a ban on the so-called double-dipping until the Republican victories.

Hubbert stepped down at the end of 2011 after more than 42 years as executive secretary of the AEA, telling members he could no longer devote the energy he needed for the position due to health concerns that included kidney dialysis.

Beneficial or detrimental?

Hubbert told the Montgomery Advertiser in 2009 that the "bread and butter" for AEA was dealing with funding at the Legislature, the largest funding source for education in Alabama. Many observers praised Hubbert's knack for knowing which lawmakers were on his side of an issue.

"He knew one thing," Reed said. "He knew how to count votes."

Critics, including Hubbard, called AEA and its leaders, a barrier to progress and reform in education in Alabama, prioritizing their members' agenda over children and education programs.

"His job is not to look at what is best for education in Alabama. His job is to look after the people who pay him, that is what he is paid for," Hubbard said. "The problem is we have too many legislators who do what he says that is not in the best interest of the state."

Others adamantly disagreed.

"He is someone who has always been an advocate for education, continually fighting to raise the standards for the teachers in our schools," said Sen. Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, in 2009.

Bedford, who was once one of the most powerful senators in the state and a former Senate minority leader, said in 2009 that Hubbert was a man of "unquestioned integrity and intelligence" who was able to succeed at the State House with his "attention to detail while still seeing the big picture."

"He does not get distracted by petty fights," the senator said.

State Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, a former chairman of the Senate's education budget committee, once supported a Hubbert opponent in one of Hubbert's gubernatorial runs, due to a disagreement over an issue. Sanders said he later regretted his decision not to support Paul Hubbert and said "Alabama would be even better than it is" if he had been elected.

Hubbard said in 2009 that the executive secretary was "paid a lot of money to look after his union members." Hubbert and Reed, respectively, received $492,515 and $488,998 in base compensation from the association in 2010, according the the AEA's 2010 IRS Form 990. The men received $68,900 or more each in retirement or deferred compensation.

For his part, Hubbert said in 2009 that the other side needed a "bogeyman" and a "rallying point." They could not attack the teachers, he said, so they came after him and the organization.

"When you do nothing, you bother no one," he said. "The fact that AEA is in the news regularly is because we are dealing with the issues of the day. That's what our members expect of us."

Former classroom teacher turned AEA into power player

Born in Jasper, Hubbert grew up on a farm with intentions of going to law school. He said he was not blessed with money, and decided to get a teaching certification as an undergraduate "as a good insurance policy" he could find a job.

The one-time classroom teacher said he chose education "as a young man because I found I enjoyed working with students."

He began teaching economics and American history in Madison County, where a principal who knew he wanted to go to law school tried to persuade him to stay in education. Hubbert decided he liked education.

He enjoyed the classroom, but said he knew he needed to go into administration to earn more money to make a better life for his family.

Hubbert's career moved quickly after he received his bachelor's degree in 1959 -- just a decade before he assumed management of the AEA. During that time, he returned to college and served stints as business manager for Tuscaloosa City Schools and as superintendent of Troy City Schools.

When the top position at the AEA opened up in early 1969, Hubbert was a 35-year-old superintendent of Troy City Schools, with an opportunity to live out his dream: Becoming a professor in the College of Education at the University of Alabama, his alma mater.

There were about 30 candidates for the AEA job, and when the then-president of the AEA approached him, Hubbert initially declined.

Over three decades later, Hubbert said he was still uncertain why he took the top position at the AEA. But, he said, he saw potential in the organization and wanted to cultivate it. Managing the AEA is one of the top jobs in K-12 education in the state along with the state superintendent of education, Hubbert said.

One of his first tasks proved critical to the AEA's long-term success. In the mid 1960s, the National Education Association, which was merging with the black affiliates of the American Teachers Association, encouraged segregated associations to merge as schools were integrating. In Alabama, state leaders opposed the organizations merging.

Within five months of taking the reins of the AEA in March, 1969, Hubbert worked with Reed to merge the AEA, which had white membership, with the Alabama State Teachers' Association, a black organization. The merger formed one of the first -- and easily the most formidable -- interracial organizations in the state's history, and took place just four years after state troopers beat back civil rights marchers trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965.

"I think combining the Alabama Education Association with the Alabama State Teachers Association had an extremely important impact on Alabama politics," Bill Stewart, University of Alabama professor emeritus, told the Advertiser in 2009. "It not only meant that both races were represented, but more occupations in the area of education. That merger made AEA what it is today -- a tremendously important force that has to be reckoned with."

Reed said the merger would not have worked without Hubbert, who he described in 2009 as smart, courageous and trustworthy.

"The merger was more successful in Alabama than elsewhere," Hubbert said. " ... We kept going. We did not miss a beat."

Membership in the AEA ballooned after the association opened its membership and went from an organization of mostly superintendents and teachers to include support staff such as lunchroom workers, maintenance and janitorial staff.

"They were at-will employees," Hubbert said. "If the principal had a cousin that he wanted to give a job, he could terminate you. It didn't matter how long you worked there. They had no health insurance and no retirement benefits."

Hubbert's inclusion of those workers extended to his every-day dealings. Former state Rep. Betty Carol Graham, D-Alexander City, a former president of the AEA, had an office across from Hubbert's. One time, a janitor with a concern was waiting to see him. Someone informed Hubbert that the governor was there to see him, but Hubbert said the janitor was there first.

Stewart said the AEA opening its membership to support staff and having the ability and strength to take on employment issues transformed AEA into more than an association, but a quasi-teachers union, which he said makes the AEA unique among state associations and more powerful.

The first battle

The new organization faced an early challenge to its power. In 1971, then-Gov. George Wallace wanted to divert millions from the Education Trust Fund.

"Gov. Wallace was not accustomed to anyone saying no," Hubbert said. "The result was a political brawl."

Thousands of AEA members took to the streets and marched to the Capitol demanding that legislators preserve the Education Trust Fund for teacher's benefits and salaries.

"At that point is when you see us come together with unity of purpose behind common goals," Hubbert said. "White men and women, black men and women all came together and lobbied the Legislature. And we won that battle."

State Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, told the Advertiser in 2009 that AEA's defeat of Wallace let it be known across the state that AEA was more than a teachers association, but was an organization with the power to defeat the will of the governor.

"Every governor -- Democrat or Republican -- has had a problem with Paul Hubbert," Holmes said. "He wouldn't let none of them have their way when it comes to teachers' issues in the state."

The 1971 dispute would be the first of many victories for the AEA in the coming decades. Association leaders fought other governors and fought for other issues. One involved allowing women to teach through pregnancies.

"Until AEA took it on, there was a time when a woman teacher had to resign if she became pregnant," Hubbert said. "We thought that was ridiculous. The father didn't have to do this and give up his income, and childbirth is something that everybody had to experience. We thought, 'How foolish.' And we got it changed."

The PAC

During the fight with Wallace, Hubbert said members of the House of Representatives told him the governor pulled them into an office and threatened to strip road and bridge money from their districts. Hubbert said he knew the AEA would need to support the lawmakers who stood with them.

"We had to stand with the people who stood with us," he said.

So, in 1972, Hubbert said the AEA became the first organization to form a political action committee.

"We used it in 1974 with amazing success," he said. "We have helped people who help us."

The PAC raised about $76,000 during the 1974 election. Hubbert said some of it was raised by passing the hat at events throughout the state. By 2010, the PAC spent more than $9.4 million.

Running for governor

Hubbert campaigned for then-Lt. Gov. Bill Baxley for governor in 1986. Following a successful liver transplant in 1990, Hubbert decided to run for governor that year. He said later the liver transplant gave him a "new lease on life," but also that he felt burned-out after 21 years at the helm of the AEA.

"There were things I could do as governor that I couldn't do here," he said.

Hubbert decided he could utilize the same coalition that Baxley assembled for his unsuccessful run.

He won the Democratic nomination over several key figures in the party, including future governor and then-attorney general Don Siegelman, former Gov. Fob James, then-U.S. Rep. Ronnie Flippo and state Sen. Charles Bishop.

Hubbert, with about 48 percent of the vote in the general election, lost a close race to incumbent Republican Gov. Guy Hunt, a loss he attributed to "pretty negative ads."

He decided to run again in 1994, which he said was complicated by the ethics conviction that removed Hunt from office and the subsequent rise of then-Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom to the governor's office. But, he said, he was already too far into the race to back out. He lost the nomination to Folsom.

Running for governor, he said, "was a wonderful experience."

"If he had become governor, Alabama would be even better than it is," Sanders said. "Alabama is much better because Dr. Hubbert lived. It is a lot better because he served these 40 years in AEA."

Retirement

Hubbert and Reed, long-considered an imposing political team, told the AEA board in September of 2011 that it should begin the process to find their replacements.

In October 2011, Hubbert wrote in the AEA's Alabama School Journal that he had hoped to have more time to work with the new Legislature, letting them know the AEA would be a partner when they were helping schools, but a formidable opponent when lawmakers sought a path that would damage education or AEA members.

"Taking anti-rejection medication following a liver transplant in 1990 has damaged my kidneys to the point that I must have dialysis three times per week, hardly conducive to the type of schedule I have maintained for the past 43 years," Hubbert wrote in the journal that was distributed to 105,000 readers. Hubbert also underwent heart bypass surgery in 2005.

The board selected Mabry, a former state finance director, as executive secretary and Gregory Graves, a lawyer with the association, as associate executive secretary in a December meeting. Hubbert's failing health was evident at that meeting.

But Hubbert said leading up to his departure that he was not concerned about the future of the AEA when he left. He said much of the association's operation had become institutionalized with a larger team of lawyers and a larger team in the field to assist members.

The organization's strength has waned since Hubbert's departure. While AEA managed in 2012 to block legislation that would have established charter schools, they were outflanked by Republicans the following year on the Alabama Accountability Act, which allows families with students in failing schools to claims tax credits for use in private schools. The organization's efforts to play in the Republican primaries early this year were largely unsuccessful, despite AEA spending over $7 million on the races.

Hubbert broke almost two years of silence last month in a letter that was sharply critical of the financial direction of AEA, as well as Mabry's leadership. Citing declining revenues and questioning what Hubbert characterized as "high-risk stock ventures," he called for an audit of the organization. At a meeting a few days later, AEA's executive committee ordered an audit of the organization's finances but took no action against Mabry.

Despite his initial lack of enthusiasm for the position, Hubbert said in 2009 running the AEA was the "second-best" job in Alabama.

"I would have been shocked when I came here if I knew that I would still be here," Hubbert said. "It is a joy."

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