Rep. Terri Sewell with President Obama and Civil Rights movement veteran Amelia Boynton Robinson.
Alabama continues to face pressure over its decision to close 31 driver's license offices, including ones in eight out of 10 of its most heavily non-white counties. Since Alabama's voter ID law recently went into effect, driver's licenses aren't just about driving but about exercising the right to vote, and despite the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act:
Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) released a letter Monday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking the department to investigate the closures in a state which requires government-issued photo IDs to vote. Eight of the 14 counties in Sewell's district will be without a DMV, the letter said.
"Despite a budgetary pretext, the consequence of this decision is to deny the most vulnerable in Alabama an equal opportunity to obtain a means to vote," Sewell wrote. "These closures will potentially disenfranchise Alabama's poor, elderly, disabled and black communities."
Alabama isn't the only state engaging in voter suppression, of course. It's one of the top state-level Republican priorities out there, and they're finding
lots of sneaky ways to make sure the wrong people (black, brown, poor, Democrats) have trouble voting.