Carroll Hubbard Jr. (July 7, 1937 – November 12, 2022) was an American politician and attorney from
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
. He began his political career in the
Kentucky Senate
The Kentucky Senate is the upper house of the Kentucky General Assembly. The Kentucky Senate is composed of 38 members elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. There are no term limits for Kentucky Senators. The Kentu ...
, and was elected to the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...
in 1974. He served until he was defeated in 1992, after becoming embroiled in the
House banking scandal
The House banking scandal broke in early 1992, when it was revealed that the US House of Representatives allowed its members to overdraw their House checking accounts without the risk of being penalized by the House bank, which was actually a clea ...
, and ultimately spent two years in prison. After being released, Hubbard ran unsuccessfully for the
Kentucky General Assembly
The Kentucky General Assembly, also called the Kentucky Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It comprises the Kentucky Senate and the Kentucky House of Representatives.
The General Assembly meets annually in the ...
on four occasions.
Hubbard was a
Democrat
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
during his time in elected office, but he switched to the
Republican Party
Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party.
Republican Party may also refer to:
Africa
*Republican Party (Liberia)
* Republican Part ...
in the last years of his life.
Education and military service
Hubbard was born on July 7, 1937 in Murray, Kentucky to Dr. Carroll Hubbard, Sr., a Baptist minister, and Beth Hubbard, an elementary school teacher. The family moved several times during his youth, including to Beaver Dam, Kentucky and then Ashland, Kentucky. In 1953, the family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, when his father became pastor of St. Matthews Baptist Church. In Louisville, Mr. Hubbard attended Eastern High School and graduated in 1955.
After high school, Hubbard attended Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky. At Georgetown, he was editor-in-chief of The Georgetonian, a weekly college newspaper. He was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order and served as its President of the fraternity during his senior year. During his senior year at Georgetown, Mr. Hubbard was selected as “Mr. Georgetonian.”
After graduating from Georgetown College with a degree in sociology in 1959, Mr. Hubbard attended the University of Louisville Law School, where he received a full scholarship. In 1967, he was elected to serve in the
Kentucky Senate
The Kentucky Senate is the upper house of the Kentucky General Assembly. The Kentucky Senate is composed of 38 members elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. There are no term limits for Kentucky Senators. The Kentu ...
.
He graduated from the
United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine
The United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) is the United States Air Force (USAF) organization focused on education, research, and operational consultation in aerospace and operational medicine. USAFSAM was founded in 1918 t ...
at
Brooks Air Force Base in
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
in November 1962 and served in the
Kentucky Air National Guard
The Kentucky Air National Guard (KY ANG) is the aerial militia of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, United States of America. It is, along with the Kentucky Army National Guard, an element of the Kentucky National Guard.
As commonwealth militia unit ...
from 1962–67, where he became a captain.
[Hall, Ben]
"U.S. Representative"
'' The Messenger'', Madisonville, Kentucky, volume 69, number 70, May 14, 1986, page 6. He also served in the
Kentucky Army National Guard
The Kentucky Army National Guard is a component of the United States Army and the United States National Guard. Nationwide, the Army National Guard comprises approximately one half of the US Army's available combat forces and approximately one t ...
from 1968 to 1970, where he became a captain. He moved to Mayfield, Kentucky where he practiced law for several years.
U.S. House of Representatives
In May 1974, Mr. Hubbard, then a State Senator, defeated incumbent Congressman Frank Stubblefield in the Democratic primary election to represent Kentucky’s First District in the United States Congress. Mr. Hubbard then won the general election in November 1974 and began serving in Congress in Washington, D.C. in January 1975.
As one of 75 freshmen members of the 94th Congress, Mr. Hubbard was elected as president of this large freshman class of new U.S. Representatives. Mr. Hubbard was reelected to Congress in the elections of 1976, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, and 1990, serving the people of the First District of Kentucky for 18 years in Washington, D.C.
While in Congress, Mr. Hubbard was a member of the House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee and House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee. In addition to his office at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, Mr. Hubbard maintained district offices in Madisonville, Henderson, Hopkinsville and Paducah, Kentucky and travelled back to Kentucky from Washington nearly every weekend, where he participated in hundreds of community meetings and events, gave countless speeches, and shook an immeasurable number of hands.
Correspondence with the district’s constituents also took up much of Mr. Hubbard’s time during his days in Congress. In this era before e-mail and social media, Mr. Hubbard personally signed and sent literally hundreds of thousands of letters, newsletters, calendars and Christmas cards to the citizens of Western Kentucky.
Hubbard served in Congress for 18 years, during which he mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge for
Governor of Kentucky
The governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky is the head of government of Kentucky. Sixty-two men and one woman have served as governor of Kentucky. The governor's term is four years in length; since 1992, incumbents have been able to seek re-el ...
in 1979.
In 1983, Hubbard was invited to South Korea to attend a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the United States–South Korea Mutual Defense Treaty with three fellow members of Congress, including
Larry McDonald
Lawrence Patton McDonald (April 1, 1935 – September 1, 1983) was an American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Georgia's 7th congressional district as a Democrat from 1975 until he was killed ...
and Senator
Jesse Helms
Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was an American politician. A leader in the conservative movement, he served as a senator from North Carolina from 1973 to 2003. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ...
. Hubbard and Helms planned to meet with McDonald to discuss how to join McDonald on the
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (KE007/KAL007)The flight number KAL 007 was used by air traffic control, while the public flight booking system used KE 007 was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alask ...
. However, as the delays mounted, instead of joining McDonald, Hubbard at the last minute gave up on the trip, canceled his reservations, and accepted a Kentucky speaking engagement. The flight was later shot down by the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
killing all passengers and crew.
Rubbergate
Hubbard lost his 1992 re-election bid in the Democratic primary to
Thomas Barlow after becoming one of a number of Representatives embroiled in the "Rubbergate"
House banking scandal
The House banking scandal broke in early 1992, when it was revealed that the US House of Representatives allowed its members to overdraw their House checking accounts without the risk of being penalized by the House bank, which was actually a clea ...
.
After he pleaded guilty to violations of federal campaign finance laws, Hubbard served two years in prison from 1995 to 1997.
His wife Carol Brown Hubbard, was convicted of using her husband's congressional aides to work on her failed campaign for Congress. She was sentenced to five years' probation.
Hubbard served as an FBI informant, codenamed
Elmer Fudd
Elmer J.''Hare Brush'' (1956) Fudd is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. '' Looney Tunes''/'' Merrie Melodies'' series and the archenemy of Bugs Bunny. He has one of the more disputed origins in the Warner Bros. cartoon pantheo ...
, in an attempt to reduce his sentence. He was disbarred because of his conviction but was reinstated by the
Kentucky Supreme Court
The Kentucky Supreme Court was created by a 1975 constitutional amendment and is the state supreme court of the U.S. state of Kentucky. Prior to that the Kentucky Court of Appeals was the only appellate court in Kentucky. The Kentucky Court of ...
in 2001 because of his "good moral character", despite the Kentucky Bar Association's board of governors voting unanimously against reinstatement.
[
]
Later career
In 2019, while working on a case, Hubbard mailed a photograph of the opposing counsel and her wife with a homophobic
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, m ...
slur written on it. The fallout from that incident resulted in five counts of misconduct including lying under oath about the incident. The Kentucky Supreme Court suspended him from the practice of law for sixty days. Later that year, Hubbard was found to be practicing law without a license as he had failed to complete the continuing education credits associated with the suspension. Hubbard was ultimately permanently disbarred as a consequence of the incident, becoming the third lawyer in Kentucky history to be disbarred more than once.[
]
Post-congressional campaigns
In 2006 and 2008, Hubbard was unsuccessful in attempts to seek election to the Kentucky Senate. He lost by 58 votes in the 2006 race. He mounted a third and final unsuccessful bid in 2012.[
Hubbard announced in 2019 that he was changing his party affiliation to Republican, expressing disagreement with " ultra liberal" positions in the Democratic Party.][
In January 2020, he filed to run for the ]Kentucky House of Representatives
The Kentucky House of Representatives is the lower house of the Kentucky General Assembly. It is composed of 100 Representatives elected from single-member districts throughout the Commonwealth. Not more than two counties can be joined to form ...
against Republican incumbent Steven Rudy. Hubbard lost the primary to Rudy by a wide margin. Rudy subsequently faced Democratic candidate Corbin Snardon in the general election.
Personal life and death
Hubbard was married twice and had two daughters. He died at a nursing home in Paducah, Kentucky
Paducah ( ) is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky. The largest city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Missour ...
, on November 12, 2022, at age 85.
See also
*List of American federal politicians convicted of crimes
This list consists of American politicians convicted of crimes either committed or prosecuted while holding office in the federal government. It includes politicians who were convicted or pleaded guilty in a court of law; and does not include p ...
*List of federal political scandals in the United States
This article provides a list of political scandals that involve officials from the government of the United States, sorted from oldest to most recent.
Scope and organization of political scandals
This article is organized by presidential terms ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hubbard, Carroll
1937 births
2022 deaths
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
21st-century American lawyers
American people convicted of campaign finance violations
Candidates in the 2006 United States elections
Candidates in the 2008 United States elections
Candidates in the 2012 United States elections
Candidates in the 2020 United States elections
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Kentucky
Eastern High School (Louisville, Kentucky) alumni
Georgetown College (Kentucky) alumni
Kentucky lawyers
Kentucky National Guard personnel
Kentucky Republicans
Kentucky politicians convicted of crimes
Kentucky state senators
People from Murray, Kentucky
Military personnel from Kentucky
Paul G. Blazer High School alumni
United States Air Force officers
United States Army officers
University of Louisville School of Law alumni