By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Saturday, October 17, former Secretary of State and Democratic Presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton was in Hoover to deliver to the influential Alabama Democratic Conference at the Wynfrey Hotel.
Clinton was highly critical of Alabama Governor Robert Bentley’s (R) decision to close 31 rural driver’s license offices.
Clinton said that the plan to close the 31 offices was, “A blast from the Jim Crow past.” “We have to defend the most fundamental right in our Democracy, the right to vote,” Clinton said. “No one in this State, no one, should ever forget the history that enabled generations of people left out and left behind to finally be able to vote.”
Prior to Mrs. Clinton’
s arrival on Friday, Gov. Robert Bentley had already announced that the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) had announced a partial reversal of the decision. Once a month the offices will all be open for driver’s license exams. Persons that already have driver’s licenses can get their licenses renewed at their county Probate Judge’s office.
Clinton also attended a fundraiser in Birmingham headed by Congresswoman Terri A. Sewell (D-Selma).
Mrs. Clinton said, “Fifty years after Rosa Parks sat and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched and John Lewis bled, it is hard to believe we are back having this same debate about whether or not every American gets a chance to vote and exercise his rights.”
Clinton is coming off the first Democratic Party Presidential Debate where she won according to most pundits. This week Mrs. Clinton will have to testify to the Select Committee on Benghazi. Conservatives allege that as Secretary of State Mrs. Clinton compromised national security by bypassing the secure servers of the State Department and instead ran a private email server out of her house. The FBI is currently investigating Mrs. Clinton’s handling of classified material. Democrats claim that the Select Committee on Benghazi is just an attack on Mrs. Clinton because she is running for President.
Republicans deny that charge.
Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina) wrote in USA Today, “Secretary Clinton was in charge at all times relevant to our inquiry, so of course we need her public record and testimony. But she is one witness. Her emails make up 5 percent of what the committee has.”
Mrs. Clinton is an attorney, a mother, a grandmother, legal counsel for the House Democrats during Watergate, a former US Senator, a former First Lady, and former First Lady of Arkansas.
Political pundits suggest that Clinton is hoping to dominate the Democratic Primaries in the South where Black voters dominate. None of her Democratic rivals have substantial presences in southern states at this point.
The Alabama Presidential Primary is March 1.
(Original Reporting by CNN’s Dan Merica and Athena Jones, USA Today’and Fox News contributed to this report.)
