GOP runoff: AEA an issue separating Byrne, Bentley

MONTGOMERY — A cartoon on the cover of a recent publication from the Alabama Education Association captures how big an issue the teachers' organization has become in the Republican runoff for governor.

The cartoon shows a pint-size version of Bradley Byrne riding a child's hobby horse. A smiling Robert Bentley towers over him like an amused parent.

AEA, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Montgomery, has become a central issue in the GOP governor's race, including funding ads criticizing Byrne and providing $10,000 in early support to Bentley.

Byrne gave AEA a lesson in political animosity when he kicked off his campaign for governor by pointing out the association's building near the Capitol and aiming criticism in its direction. He's hardly made a speech since without citing the group.

The former two-year college chancellor and State Board of Education member says AEA "stands for the worst" in the teaching profession. He says he had to fight AEA at every step to remove the "culture of corruption" in the two-year college system. And he's accusing AEA of encouraging Democrats to turn out for the Republican runoff July 13 to vote for Bentley.

"Virtually every time Bradley Byrne talks to the media, he launches an attack on AEA," said Paul Hubbert, the organization's executive secretary for more than 40 years.

Hubbert said AEA is doing what its 105,000 members want, and Byrne's constant criticism of AEA is really an attack on public school educators.

Bentley doesn't share Byrne's view of AEA. The state representative and retired physician from Tuscaloosa says AEA is one of the organizations a governor must work with to improve education.

"I'm not going to pick a fight with education. I'm going to try to work with people," he said.

He said Byrne's strategy for the runoff July 13 is the same as it was for the primary June 1.

"It's interesting that he painted Tim James as the AEA candidate up until Tim James lost. Now he's painted me as the AEA candidate," Bentley said.

Byrne was elected to the State Board of Education in 1994 as a Democrat with AEA's support. He switched to the GOP in 1997 and won re-election in 1998. A split started growing between him and Hubbert. It widened when Byrne moved to the state Senate in 2002 and won re-election in 2006.

The split turned into open hostility when Byrne ran Alabama's two-year college system from 2007-2009 and had to clean it up from a corruption scandal that brought down a former chancellor, several administrators and three legislators.

Byrne fought AEA politically and in court to establish criminal background checks for college employees and to ban college employees from serving in the Legislature after this year.

Bentley says the fight has become so personal that it threatens to hurt public education if Byrne becomes governor.

"I'm going to support our teachers. I'm going to support public education," Bentley said.

"He's very much a supporter of AEA," Byrne said.

He said Bentley voted to rewrite Alabama's teacher tenure law in 2004 to let arbitrators decide whether the firing of a teacher stands up. He says the law has made it harder to get rid of bad teachers, and if elected, he will seek to rewrite the law to remove arbitration and extend the time needed to get tenure from three years to five.

Bentley says the 2004 legislation was worked out between the Republican governor and AEA, and many Republicans in the Legislature voted for it.

Byrne, who was state senator at the time, said he had the foresight to filibuster against the bill for two weeks and try to kill it.

Byrne said Bentley chose not to vote when AEA tried to pass a bill in 2008 that would have undone Bryne's efforts to stop junior college employees from serving in the Legislature. Bentley says he wanted the issue decided in the courts, not the Legislature, and that's where it remains.

In the last legislative session, Byrne was a supporter of Gov. Bob Riley's unsuccessful bill to legalize charter schools. Byrne said the legislation would have provider greater education options for students and allowed parents to choose their child's school.

Bentley helped kill Riley's bill in a House committee. He said he supported a pilot program, but not Riley's statewide effort.

"I'm conservative. I don't believe you rush into something for the whole state of Alabama that we don't now for sure will work well," he said.

As for his relationship with AEA during his eight years in the House, he said he has voted with the organization sometimes and other times he hasn't, depending on his view of the issue. "That's the way I've done the whole time with special interest groups," he said.

Byrne says Bentley either votes with AEA or doesn't vote at all.

"I'm a reformer and I've been trying to fight the good fight against AEA. That's a pretty big difference between us," Byrne said.

The winner meets Democrat Ron Sparks on Nov. 2.