By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

I want to be Paul Hubbert’s son.

It seems like it would be a great gig. The way the Alabama Education Association executive secretary protects his cronies and their institutions, his son would have to be able to get away with murder. Just look at the way Mother Hubbert runs roughshod throughout the state strong-arming anyone and anything that might pose a threat to his union and his power, and you get the idea of what a protective parent he’d be.

I can just imagine rolling into the front yard when I was 17, front bumper ripped off, women’s underwear hanging from the rearview, everything reeking of booze and three uniformed cops hot on my trail. Mother Hubbert would probably send me inside for a snack while he berated the police for daring to hassle such an upstanding individual as his son. (Of course, I’d drink all the scotch in the house while he was in the front yard, but he’d forgive me.)

Now I don’t know Paul Hubbert, or even if he has kids for that matter, so this rank speculation as to how he’d treat his offspring is just that. He might be a total drill sergeant with his own flesh-and-blood. What isn’t speculation though, is that if you have even the slightest connection with his ridiculously powerful union, Mother Hubbert will go to war for you.

We’ve all watched for years as he wanders through Goat Hill scratching backs, twisting arms and tossing around loads of campaign cash to manipulate our easily manipulated legislators into doing just about anything he wants. I suppose we’ve all become accustomed to it.

But his latest stunt shows just how far Mother’s willing to go to protect his kiddies, money and power.

If there’s anything that seems reasonably clear in this state, it’s that the two-year college system has been amazingly mismanaged for the last several years. In fact, it appears to have been criminally mismanaged in rather awesome fashion. Two companies have already agreed to cooperate with investigators trying to warm up a jail cell for former Chancellor Roy Johnson, one of Hubbert’s buddies. Geez, a Birmingham News reporter even won the Pulitzer Prize this year for uncovering this cesspool. Calling the two-year system corrupt isn’t just gossip around the ol’ clothesline.

So you’d imagine any sane, moral human being would want the system to be cleaned up, particularly if this sane, moral human being was in charge of say, a very large teachers union that has members in the two-year system. You’d imagine.

But Hubbert appears to want no such thing. Instead, he supports crony after crony coming in to the chancellor’s position – anything that will keep the status quo intact.

When State Sen. Bradley Byrne was appointed recently to be the latest chancellor, people all over the state applauded the move. Byrne is widely regarded as an honest, upstanding guy and someone whose previous experience on the state school board would give him a leg up Roto-rootering the system. Most everyone liked the appointment – most everyone other than Mother Hubbert.

He immediately swung into action, filing suit to have the appointment overturned, grousing that it violated the state’s open meeting law. Oddly enough, when his buddy Johnson was appointed the same way a few years ago, Hubbert didn’t make a sound. While I’m sure a backroom wheeler-dealer like Hubbert really does support wide-open government, his reasoning for dumping Byrne was total BS (and that doesn’t stand for Bishop State).

Hubbert is trying to protect his kids in the two-year system by giving the boot to someone who might actually try to get rid of the graft and corruption. I know, it would probably be strange to try to run almost any part of Alabama’s government without graft and corruption, but it’s worth a try.

As it stands, the entire two-year system is in crisis because of the fraud and corruption. A river of subpoenas is flowing into Bishop State here in Mobile, and as yet, President Yvonne Kennedy hasn’t really answered any of the pertinent questions as to what’s been going on during her watch. But Byrne has at least promised to make her do so, and that’s probably what has Hubbert in such a twist.

After all, Yvonne isn’t just the Bishop president, she’s a state representative, and, I’m sure, someone Hubbert can count on to further his agenda anytime the Legislature is in session.

Now I don’t believe Mother Hubbert is going to be successful in getting Byrne kicked out of the chancellor’s post. The governor telegraphed his intention to tap Byrne for the job well in advance of it actually happening. If this was a secret appointment, it was the worst-kept secret appointment in history. The real problem here is why Hubbert is working to hinder cleaning up the toxic waste dump that is the state’s two-year system instead of getting in there with the hazmat team himself?

What does it say that the head of the state’s teachers union would rather wallow in the muck and mire of a corrupt system than to see a few of his buddies’ heads roll and the system go on to flourish? Then again, if uncorrupted types were put in place at the two-year schools, they might not be so easily pushed to push Hubbert’s agenda.

So to Mother Hubbert I say throw this poor dog a bone and adopt me. I could use your kind of parental support, especially if I ever decide to run a crooked college system.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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