Former Democratic Congressman Carroll Hubbard of Paducah has mailed out a news release announcing he’s switching to the GOP at 2 p.m. Tuesday in the McCracken County clerk’s office.
More than a few Democratic officials in western Kentucky are glad to see him go.
“I’m not sorry in the least,” said Jennifer Smith of Paducah, McCracken County Democratic chair.
“To quote the great Roy Clark, ‘Thank God and Greyhound he’s gone,’” said David Ramey of Murray, Calloway County party chair.
“I can’t wait to tell my Republican friends he’s one of them,” said Tom Waldrop of Mayfield, the Graves County Democratic chair.
Forward Kentucky called Hubbard on his cell phone to get his response to criticism from regional party officials. He answered and immediately hung up. FK called him back and got a recorded message that his mailbox was full.
“This is not an easy decision!” Hubbard wrote in his release. But he said he’s convinced that most Democrats who supported the party from 1950 to 2015 “would be unhappy and shocked with the radical 2019 Democrats’ national leaders such as we see so often on CNN and MSNBC.”
He presented a laundry list of reasons for quitting the party. Hubbard claimed the Democrats want to give “illegal immigrants” the same rights as “native Americans and legal immigrants, including drivers’ licenses and, especially, the right to register to vote in all our elections.”
Hubbard charged that his soon-to-be former party wants to criminalize “the ownership of many currently legal guns” and aims to “prosecute the National Rifle Association.”
Further, he said Democrats are all in for hiking taxes, notably on “those with good incomes,” funding Planned Parenthood, backing “abortion on demand” and supporting “killing newborn babies.”
According to Hubbard, Democrats also aim to “eliminate all private health insurance and substitute Medicare for All,” get rid of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), impeach President Trump and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, nix “pipelines and energy development,” eliminate the electoral college and pack the Supreme Court with liberal justices.
Hubbard also wondered if Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, favors “the Green New Deal of eliminating all airplanes.”
Hubbard wound up by declaring that the party is rife with politicians “pushing disastrous socialist schemes.” He vowed that many “former Democrats who almost every day enjoy breakfast at a Paducah Hardee’s” have gone over to the GOP, after declaring “…the Democratic Party of our parents and grandparents has actually left us!”
Smith said it’s the other way around. “We’re not the party putting people in cages. We’re not the party taking health care from people [and the party of]…the sexual predator in the White House. The party hasn’t left him. He has just chosen to align himself with a party that is okay with sexual abuse, with racism, with homophobia—a party totally in contrast with what our modern society has become.”
In his release, Hubbard said that when he ran for office under the Democratic banner some of his “most enthusiastic supporters…were West Kentucky labor unions and African Americans.”
J.W. Cleary, McCracken County NAACP president, county Democratic committee member and retired member of Steelworkers Local 550, didn’t endorse Hubbard’s exit to the GOP.
“Too many people are changing parties just because Trump is getting away with things,” Cleary said. “What…[Hubbbard is] doing is telling the person we’ve got in the White House that all the corruption going on is okay.”
Livingston County Democratic chair Daniel Hurt is “very disappointed that Congressman Hubbard has chosen to leave the party that has compassion for people of all walks of life and stands for individual liberty.”
Susanna French of Benton, Marshall County party chair, is not disappointed Hubbard is turning Republican. She said that after Hubbard “was disgraced and suspended from the practice of law for homophobic and misogynistic comments in a local court, I’m sure the Republican Party will welcome him with open arms and encourage him to run for office on their ticket.”
Earlier this year, Hubbard, 82, an attorney, was banned from practicing law for 60 days for lying under oath when he said that he didn’t slur an opposing attorney and her wife as “fat, ugly lesbians.”
The state Supreme Court said Hubbard accepted the penalty and promised to write apology letters to the two women, a judge and another attorney.
“A guy who thinks it’s okay to call a fellow attorney and her wife ‘fat, ugly lesbians’ is a Republican–who knew?” Waldrop added.
Hubbard was a two-term state senator and a nine-term congressman from Mayfield who represented the First District until 1993.
He ran for governor in 1979 and state senator in 2006 and 2008 and was defeated all three times. More than one Democratic official speculated that Hubbard wants to seek office again, but as a Republican.
Involved in a House banking scandal dubbed “Rubbergate,” Hubbard lost the 1992 Democratic primary to Tom Barlow of Paducah, who was elected and served one term.
In 1994, Hubbard pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges, was disbarred and sentenced to three years in prison.
After he was released, he sought reinstatement as an attorney. The Kentucky Bar Association’s board of governors rejected his plea, 16-0. Nonetheless, the state Supreme Court deemed Hubbard of “good moral character” and voted unanimously to give him back his law license.
“Considering his recent homophobic remarks and criminal history, I am not at all disappointed, nor particularly surprised to see him leave the party for the Republicans,” said Nate Crawford of Paducah, the McCracken County party vice chair. “Hubbard has been philosophically a Republican for a long time. He’s joining the team that’s for him.”
Hubbard signed the nearly four-page typed release. At the end, he hand wrote his mailing address and cell phone number. It’s unclear who he sent the release to; FK obtained a copy from a retired teacher.