The Crescent Map

City of Rochester

The Crescent Map adjusts district boundaries to enfranchise Black voters within the community collectively known as the Crescent, where African Americans from every walk of life were forced to live by discriminatory policies. When the maps were drawn, they accounted for Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which provides for voting districts to be drawn for marginalized communities that meet certain criteria, which are met by the African American community in the City of Rochester. 

Surprisingly, many County Legislators oppose the map – and even more surprisingly, they all are Democrats! Furthermore, last week Democratic County Executive Adam Bello announced his opposition to the Crescent Map, intimating that he will veto the map if it should pass the Legislature. Their opposition to the map seems to be informed by a combination of banal political self-interest and a desire for the map to confer partisan political advantage, which is expressly prohibited by New York State law.

Let Adam Bello and the Democratic caucus know: they should support the Crescent Map! The Democratic caucus should vote for it. If the bill passes, Mr. Bello should sign it. Their constantly-evolving stories about why they oppose the current map have only amplified their liability if the case winds up in court. Litigation would make for an expensive, lengthy, and distracting process that would divide the Democratic caucus and inflict irreparable harm to the Democrat Party’s reputation.