Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is using a Southern campaign swing to outline new criminal justice proposals she says would better treat black Americans.
The trip to Georgia and South Carolina comes as Clinton works to solidify her advantage in the African-American community over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Both candidates have called for ending mass incarceration in the United States, an issue that resonates strongly among black voters who will play a key role in choosing a nominee.
In Atlanta on Friday, Clinton will call for eliminating sentencing disparities between crack cocaine crimes and those that involve powder cocaine. Clinton proposes making the change retroactive, according to her campaign. The changes would build on a 2010 act of Congress that narrowed the disparity between crack crimes — which are concentrated among minorities — and powder crimes, which are more likely to involve whites.
Clinton’s African-American outreach has been clouded at times by political scandal, said civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who cited her use of private email while secretary of state and the death of an American ambassador in Libya.
“Hillary was always raising the right issues, but you couldn’t hear it for the noise around the servers and the Benghazi issue,” Jackson told media outlets before her Friday remarks.
Jackson’s comments are meaningful given his longstanding ties to Clinton and Sanders, her chief rival. Sanders endorsed both of Jackson’s presidential bids in 1984 and 1988.
Clinton on Friday also will propose a legal ban on racial profiling by police. The policy would forbid federal, state and local officers from “relying on a person’s race when conducting routine or spontaneous investigatory activities,” unless they have information linking a suspect to a crime. The campaign has not yet released details explaining how Clinton’s idea would go beyond existing law, but cited previous congressional proposals that would make it easier for alleged profiling victims to recover damages from government agencies in civil court.
Clinton has two campaign stops set in Atlanta, one to address a group of black ministers, another to greet supporters at Clark Atlanta University, a historically black campus near downtown. Later Friday, she is scheduled to address an NAACP banquet in Charleston, South Carolina. It is the organization’s first annual banquet since the April killing of Walter Scott, a black man shot by a white North Charleston police officer who was later fired and charged with murder, and the June massacre at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where a white gunman killed a pastor and eight others.
Sanders and Clinton mention both events in their campaign pitches. But it was Clinton who attended the public funeral for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the state senator and Emanuel pastor. She received a warm welcome from thousands in attendance.
The Southern campaign swing is part of Clinton’s increasing emphasis on a band of conservative states that typically garner more attention from Republican White House hopefuls.
South Carolina holds the South’s first primary, weeks after overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire open the nominating contest. Georgia is among several states stretching from Virginia to Texas that will hold March primaries. The front-loaded Southern schedule is a byproduct of Republicans’ domination in the region. GOP leaders who run statehouses here wanted their constituents — nearly all of them white conservatives — to have greater influence in choosing the Republican nominee after being dissatisfied with failed standard-bearers John McCain and Mitt Romney.
Yet the move also elevated Southern Democrats, increasingly synonymous with black Democrats as white Southerners defected to the GOP. It’s a constituency Clinton has known and cultivated for decades — and one that Sanders has struggled to tap, despite his emphasis on racial equality, economic issues in the minority community and his own civil rights work.
Another Democratic contender, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, has also aggressively courted the black community. He rolled out a criminal justice reform plan earlier in the year that includes some of the same policies Clinton unveiled on Friday.
In states such as Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana, blacks could make up a majority or close to a majority of the Democratic primary electorate, potentially positioning Clinton to build an early — or even decisive — lead in delegates over Sanders and O’Malley.
Clinton already has built a network of African-American leaders in those early states.
In Georgia, she’ll be joined Friday by Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon and veteran Atlanta congressman. On Thursday, her campaign announced endorsements from a dozen chairmen, present and past, of the South Carolina Legislature’s Black Caucus.
In Alabama earlier this month, she used a speech in front of black Democrats to blast the state’s white Republican governor for closing driver’s licenses offices in 31 counties, many of them overwhelmingly black. Alabama requires photo identification to vote, and driver’s licenses are the most common form of government-issued photo IDs.
Rousing the crowd of 700 people, many of them elected officials and local party leaders, Clinton called Alabama’s action “a blast from the Jim Crow past.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article
Many people who may vote in the democratic primary election, if there is one, and the general election in 2016, have no real knowledge of Mrs. Clinton or her accomplishments. As a public service, I thought I would provide some input regarding her triumphs for consideration. When Bill Clinton was president, he allowed Hillary to assume authority over a health care reform. Even after threats and intimidation, she couldn’t even get a vote in a democratic controlled congress. This fiasco cost the American taxpayers about $13 million in cost for studies, promotion, and other efforts.
Then President Clinton gave Hillary authority over selecting a female attorney general. Her first two selections were Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood – both were forced to withdraw their names from consideration. Next she chose Janet Reno – husband Bill described her selection as “my worst mistake.” Some may not remember that Reno made the decision to gas David Koresh and the Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco, Texas resulting in dozens of deaths of women and children.
Husband Bill allowed Hillary to make recommendations for the head of the Civil Rights Commission. Lani Guanier was her selection. When a little probing led to the discovery of Ms. Guanier’s radical views, her name had to be withdrawn from consideration.
Apparently a slow learner, husband Bill allowed Hillary to make some more recommendations. She chose former law partners Web Hubbel for the Justice Department, Vince Foster for the White House staff, and William Kennedy for the Treasury Department. Her selections went well: Hubbel went to prison, Foster (presumably) committed suicide, and Kennedy was forced to resign.
Many younger voters will have no knowledge of “Travelgate.” Hillary wanted to award unfettered travel contracts to Clinton friend Harry Thompson – and the White House Travel Office refused to comply She managed to have them reported to the FBI and fired. This ruined their reputations, cost them their jobs, and caused a thirty-six month investigation. Only one employee, Billy Dale was charged with a crime, and that of the enormous crime of mixing personal and White House funds. A jury acquitted him of any crime in less than two hours.
Still not convinced of her ineptness, Hillary was allowed to recommend a close Clinton friend, Craig Livingstone, for the position of Director of White House security. When Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of about 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies (Filegate) and the widespread use of drugs by White House staff, suddenly Hillary and the president denied even knowing Livingstone, and of course, denied knowledge of drug use in the White House. Following this debacle, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office after more than thirty years of service to seven presidents.
Next, when women started coming forward with allegations of sexual harassment and rape by Bill Clinton, Hillary was put in charge of the “bimbo eruption” and scandal defense. Some of her more notable decisions in the debacle were:
* She urged her husband not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit. After the Starr investigation they settled with Ms. Jones.
* She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million Dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr’s investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs.
* Hillary’s devious game plan resulted in Bill losing his license to practice law for lying under oath to a grand jury and then his subsequent impeachment by the House of Representatives.
* Hillary avoided indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice during the Starr investigation by repeating, “I do not recall,” “I have no recollection,” and “I don’t know” a total of 56 times while under oath.
* After leaving the White House, Hillary was forced to return an estimated $200,000 in White House furniture, China , and artwork that she had stolen.
What a swell party – ready for another four or eight years of this mess?
Now we are exposed to: the destruction of possibly incriminating e-mails while Hillary was Secretary of State and the “pay to play” schemes of the Clinton Foundation – we have no idea what shoe will fall next. But to her loyal fans – “what difference does it make?”