As I prepared to testify on legislation providing a right to an attorney for poor tenants facing eviction, I expected to tell this story.

Gideon v. Wainwright is the Supreme Court case that held a defendant charged with a felony is entitled to a lawyer, paid for by the state.

Gideon’s Trumpet, written by the New York Times Supreme Court correspondent, Anthony Lewis, is about the case.

I asked my parents to give it to me for Chanukah when I was 14 years old.

Lewis signed it for me when he spoke in Baltimore in 2003.

For Sandy Rosenberg, who writes laws

“This committee writes laws,” I began my testimony at 10:15 last night.

But instead of talking about the book and the author’s inscription, I said this.

An attorney for the property owners, when testifying on the bill before this one, stated that,  “If rent is paid, there are no evictions.”

Under the laws that this committee has written, the tenant should not pay the rent if the property is unsafe.

But a tenant doesn’t know that.

The overwhelming majority of tenants face eviction without a lawyer.  The landlord is represented in court, with very few exceptions.

The laws we write are not enforced if the tenant is without a lawyer.

The public policy we enact – the balancing of interests, is not a reality.