Two weeks ago, before the governor vetoed Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy’s bill to have the state gradually take over legal service for the poor, Fahy told us she was optimistic.

We wanted to be optimistic, too. Over the years, we’ve watched dedicated, intelligent public defenders so overworked they could not adequately defend the poor people who depended on them.

We felt anything but optimistic, though, when we read Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde veto message, released on New Year’s Eve.

On the one hand, Cuomo started by saying that criminal defense by the government to people who can’t afford lawyers “is of paramount importance.” He cited the unanimous 1963 United States Supreme Court ruling, Gideon v. Wainwright that says states are required to pay for attorneys in criminal cases if the suspects can’t afford them.

Since he couldn’t afford an attorney, Clarence Earl Gideon represented himself in a Florida court on a pool-room burglary charge and lost. After the Supreme Court decision, he was retried, this time with a lawyer who pointed out inconsistencies in the account of the only witness; Gideon was acquitted. And about 2,000 convicted Florida prisoners were freed.

The opening of Cuomo’s veto statement also touts his role in the settlement of the Hurrell-Harring v. State of New York lawsuit in which caseloads were capped for public defenders in five counties, quality standards were set for representing poor people there, and counsel was provided for them at their first arraignments. “The groundbreaking advances in those five counties can, and should, be extended to the rest of the State,” the governor writes. So far, so good.

But then the governor raises two objections to the bill — the costs for non-criminal legal services, and the need for fiscal oversight from the Division of Budget.

The governor says the state would have to spend more than $800 million every year and that $650 million of that is not related to the Hurrell-Harring agreement; rather, he says, that additional money would pay for non-criminal defense work like legal services in family court and surrogate court.

“We have successfully returned the State to fiscal solvency from a record $10 billion deficit 6 years ago,” he writes.

We understand the governor is proud of his record of on-time balanced budgets but he misses the point that taxpayers right now are paying for legal defense for the poor through county taxes rather than through state taxes as the vetoed bill would have allowed. Counties raise funds through regressive property taxes, where poor people with land pay an unfair share. A state income tax is more fair and draws on a broader base.

Further, counties now face a state-imposed tax cap, which has caused many to cut essential services. This week, our news office was flooded with press releases from the governor’s office, as he makes announcements across the state, in his state-of-the-state tour, on initiatives ranging from funding child care to providing free college education — all at tremendous cost to taxpayers. The defense of poor people should be at least as important as these.

The governor’s second point in vetoing the bill is that the Division of Budget should oversee the reforms set by Hurrell-Harring in five counties as they are extended to all of the counties in the state. This was a major sticking point in Cuomo’s negotiations with legislators. We believe it is imperative for the administration of these reforms to function independently from political pressure.

The state’s Office of Indigent Legal Services, created six years ago, is in place and can be amplified to run a statewide system if one is legislated.

“This bill is nothing more than a backdoor attempt to shift costs from the counties to state taxpayers under the guise of indigent defense,” the governor concludes.

We felt pessimistic as we read the governor’s veto message. But then we got a call back from Jonathan Gradess, the founding executive director of the New York Defenders Association.

Gradess has been working for decades to improve indigent defense and sees the governor’s veto as just one more hurdle. “A lot more people now realize that poor people are getting screwed,” he said. “This state’s public defense system is in the toilet…There is demand for ending the patchwork…You can’t hold back that tide.”

He points out that a diverse coalition ranging from the Association of Counties and the state’s Conservative Party to the NAACP and the New York Civil Liberties Union all support the initiative. Before calling The Enterprise, Gradess said, he was taking calls from counties strategizing and considering suits if the initiative doesn’t become law.

Taking the long view, Gradess says that for 44 years legal services in family court have been required as an obligation of public defenders. “There could not have been a more front-door path,” he said of the proposed bill including those services.

Citing the late Judith Kaye, who had been New York’s chief judge, Gradess said she had called for an independent public defense system that, unlike his not-for-profit association in an advisory role, would have regulatory authority and be funded by the state.

Right now, case management varies from county to county. A statewide system would not only be more efficient and more fair but could save money in the long run.

We urge the governor to meet again with legislative leaders to work out what needs to be done — including independent oversight and full legal services for the poor — to make this bill a law.

“I’m looking at the overall trajectory,” Gradess told us. “We’re moving forward, upward, and in the right direction.”

“Excelsior” says the top of the state-of-the-state press releases from the governor this week, printing New York’s motto in bold capital letters, with a translation below: “Ever Upward” — the first stroke of the “U” has an arrow, pointing up.

Let us lift up the poor, giving them the legal services they’re entitled to regardless of which county they live in. Excelsior indeed.

Editor’s note: The editor’s daughter, Magdalena Hale Spencer, is on the board of directors of the New York State Public Defenders Association.