Hillary bashes closures of AL driver’s license offices in black communities as

The piece, published on AL.com, calls out the state’s Republican governor, Robert J. Bentley, for allowing 31 driver’s license offices to close there at the end of this month, which would disproportionately affect voters of color seeking the required ID to vote.

“We are going to fight, scraping and do everything we can to get you elected as the first woman president of these United States of America”, Birmingham Mayor William Bell said.

“After careful consideration of options regarding the closure of 31 Driver’s License offices in Alabama’s rural counties, I have asked that an Alabama Law Enforcement Agency examiner be provided one day a month to service those counties affected”. Residents also can get their driver licenses renewed at other state offices, as well as online.

Alabama’s decision to shutter driver’s license offices – which the governor said is a result of budget cuts – has drawn attention nationwide because of the state’s strict voter ID law passed past year.

Alabama, which critics say has one of the nation’s worst records of minority voting rights, has cracked down further in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling in 2013 that empowered states to shape their own voting laws.

“I voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act”, she continued, “and President George W. Bush signed it, so he clearly thought it was still needed”. The Ku Klux Klan functioned as the paramilitary wing of the Democratic Party, and was used to drive Republicans out of the South during the Reconstruction period. In Alabama, African-Americans make up approximately 25 percent of the state’s population.

Marco Rubio and John Kasich were also targeted by Clinton for not caring about new voting right laws. On Thursday, I met with Congresswoman Terri Sewell, who represents eight of the impacted counties, to inform her of my decision.

“To suggest the closure of the driver’s license offices is a racial issue is simply not true, and to suggest otherwise should be considered an effort to promote a political agenda”, Bentley said.

Speaking to the Alabama Democratic Conference, originally created in the 1960s to urge black Americans to vote Democratic, and anxious that she will not succeed in winning the nearly-unanimous support of the black community that Barack Obama depended on in 2008 and 2012, she pontificated: “Here in Alabama, without the right kind of ID, it’s almost impossible to vote. Those offices should stay open – and not just one day a month”, writes Clinton, who also highlights the fact that Alabama is one of 17 states without early voting, which has been a boon to Democrats in two straight general elections.

The closures only affected the issuance of first-time permits and licenses.

The Democratic front-runner says, “This is a blast from the Jim Crow past”.

In June, Republicans hit back against Clinton’s critiques.