By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Tuesday, Alabama State Representative Joe Hubbard (D) from Montgomery introduced a House Joint Resolution, HJR 377, that would prohibit the Alabama State School Board of Education from accepting any money in the next year to implement the controversial common core standards in Alabama during the next year.
Rep. Joe Hubbard asked the House to suspend the rules to pass his HJR 377.
Representative Mac McCutcheon (R) from Capshaw said that Hubbard’s resolution should go through the legislative process and should be considered in committee before it goes to the floor of the House.
Only 11 representatives voted for the motion to suspend the rules and adopt HJR 377. 63 voted that they were opposed to suspending the rules.
Rep. Joe Hubbard told ‘The Alabama Political Reporter,’ “It is a shame when this body can’t stand for states autonomy.” Hubbard said a vote against this resolution is a vote against this bill. Hubbard said that this vote meant his bill is dead. “A vote to expedite a HJR happens all the time. All this did was stop the process.”
Rep. Joe Hubbard told APR that it was his understanding that federal dollars will come to Alabama for adopting the common core which is why they (the Republican leadership) have sabotaged efforts to block Common Core Repeal efforts from being voted on in both the House and the Senate. “It takes talent to speak out of both sides of their mouth.”
Rep. Joe Hubbard said on the floor of the House “We thought we were going to debate the common core issues.” “We wanted to have that debate here on the house floor.” Hubbard said that the state board of education ceded their authority to bureaucrats in Washington to set the minimum standards for education in Alabama. Hubbard said that that is why the School Board was elected in the first place.
Hubbard’s resolution would have prevented the state Board of Education from taking federal dollars tied to common core standards. Hubbard said that his HJR would have taken away the financial incentives for the Board to give away their authority to the federal government until the legislature can come back in 2014 to debate this. Hubbard said, “This comes down to basic principles of federalism.” Joe Hubbard said, “They are not debating this in the Senate. They are not going to debate this in the House.”
The President of the Alabama Federation of Republican Women Elois Zeanah said on Facebook, “Nine CONSERVATIVE U.S. REPUBLICAN SENATORS, including Alabama’s Jeff Sessions, want to defund Common Core because it’s unconstitutional. Meanwhile back in Alabama, Republican Leaders Mike Hubbard and Del Marsh don’t seem to recognize a st…ate sovereignty/constitutional issue when they see it. Instead, they want to appoint a committee to tell them if CC cedes state control of education. (They’ve already heard from legal and educational experts, but they apparently didn’t get the answer they wanted, so they’ll appoint a committee.) .” President Zeanah continued, “The least they could do is to PUT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CC ON HOLD until the committee reports back. If they don’t, they will be personally responsible for WASTING HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF TAX DOLLARS Common Core will cost. They already raided the Trust Fund principal of $400 million because they couldn’t pay the state’s bills this year and the next. They should be better stewards of tax dollars and not waste them.”
Repeal of the Common Core Standards has been endorsed by the Alabama Republican Executive Committee, Republican Governor Robert Bentley, Alabama Republican Party Chairman Bill Armistead, the Rainy Day Patriots, the Republican National Committee, U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, Alabama Eagle Forum, and conservative groups throughout the state. Speaker Mike Hubbard and Senate President Pro Tempore Del Marsh have however steadfastly opposed placing any version of the Common Core Standards Repeal bill on the floor of either House of the Alabama state legislature.
