Last night, CDR and RCIL hosted a “Candidate Forum on Disability Issues”. It’s an event we do every year focusing on whichever races seem to be most pertinent to people with disabilities in the Greater Rochester Area. This year we chose to focus on the Congressional and State Legislative races touching Monroe County.

We arranged the forum and invited all the candidates. The response from candidates was great and the turnout of people with disabilities and our friends and families was awesome. Nearly 100 people joined us at the Central Library to hear from the candidates.

We were joined by the following candidates and their representatives:

US Congress

Dan Maffei running for an open seat in the 25th District, representing Irondequoit, Webster, East to Syracuse.

Alice Kryzan running for an open seat in the 26th District – Greece and Western Monroe County and parts of Western NY.

Patty Larke represented Congresswoman Louise Slaughter. Congresswoman Slaughter is trying to keep her seat in the 28th District – Fairport, Rochester, Lake Ontario area to Niagara Falls. David Crimmen, the challenger in this district also joined us for the forum.

In the 29th District, neither the incumbent Congressman Randy Kuhl, nor the challenger Eric Massa, joined us.

NYS Senate

We were joined by both the incumbent Senator Joe Robach, and the challenger Rick Dollinger in the 56th Senate District – Greece, Brighton, Parts of Rochester, Parma.

In the 55th Senate District, representing pieces of Rochester, Henrietta, Pittsford, Irondequoit, we were joined by incumbent Senator Jim Alesi. The challenger, David Nachbahr, sent a representative.

NYS Assembly

In the 130th Assembly District, representing Henrietta, Pittsford, Mendon we were joined by incumbent Assemblyman Joe Errigo. Mr. Errigo is unopposed this year.

Assemblywoman Susan John joined us from the131st Assembly District, parts of Rochester, Chili, Rush, Wheatland.

Assemblyman Joe Morelle joined us from the 132nd Assembly District, Irondequoit, Brighton, and parts of Rochester.

We were joined by both candidates in the 134th District, representing Greece, Ogden and Sweden – incumbent Assemblyman Bill Reilich and challenger David Garretson.

In the 135th Assembly District – Webster, Penfield, Perinton – we were also joined by both the candidates. Incumbent Assemblyman David Koon is being challenged by David Bonacchi.

I think that this volume of candidates at our forum definitely shows that the “Disability Vote” matters. The candidates for office are beginning to try harder to make sure they show up for our forum and our community is showing up in larger numbers to take a good look at the candidates before casting their vote on election day.

For y’all who were not able to join us at the forum, the full transcript is available online at The Rochester CDR Website.
Also, several weeks ago the candidates were given surveys regarding key disability issues. The responses to the surveys and the non-responses of candidates who chose to not respond are also online at http://rochestercdr.org/Candidates.php.

In an initial review of the evaluations done by audience members are to forum, it appears that about half of the responders indicated that the Candidate Forum on Disability Issues was “Very Important” in making their decisions among the candidates.

For me, it’s great to hear that an event CDR provided has that significant of an impact on voting decisions for our community. It’s also a great piece of evidence that our community is craving candidates who speak to them and about their issues! We’ve all already had tons of mail from these candidates, but none of it was about our issues, so we couldn’t make up our minds. Now that nearly all of the candidates have appeared in front of us, we are in much better positions to make an informed decision.

The Disability Vote is growing in its collective consciousness and the candidates of the future are going to need work that much harder to win us over. In the years to come, I certainly hope that we’ll hear many more candidates and pundits talking about how they are going to win the Disability Vote. Then, we will have arrived.