passopenrecords.org

The AP’s Mark Scolforo wrote the following article about yesterday’s open-records vote in the Pennsylvania House’s State Government Committee. It makes you wonder about all the words we have been hearing for almost a year . . . like “transparency” and “openness.” It makes you wonder about the commitment to meaningful open records as the foundation of democratic government. It makes you wonder how people can so quickly forget the lessons of November 2006 when four dozen new legislators arrived in the House because the people wanted . . . no, demanded . . . reform and openness.

We strongly supported many of the provisions of House Bill 443, and in particular we lauded its stated intention to make government more accessible and accountable to the people.

But what came out of committee last night, said Teri Henning, general counsel of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, “is worse than current law . . . and our current law is one of the worst in the country. ”

I spoke at the press conference about how the twin emotions that had filled the posts on this blog since it began last April were “Hope” and “Doubt” . . . Hope because leaders of both parties had adopted the concept of real reform and had said that open records legislation was their number 1 . . . not one of the top but number 1 . . . priority for this legislative session. Doubt because we had had our hopes up before and despite the nice words, we had yet to see corresponding action. I said, “We believe we are closer than ever before to achieving open records reform that is (1) meaningful and (2) imminent,” and so I was choosing hope over doubt.

Well, I’m not any more.

Despite opposition, Pa. House panel moves open records bill

A House committee late Wednesday approved a dramatically reworked draft of a bill to amend Pennsylvania’s open records law despite strong opposition from a newspaper association and complaints that drastic changes had been made at the last minute.

The House State Government Committee, with one Republican joining all Democrats in voting for it, approved a top-to-bottom rewriting that was sent to committee members earlier this week, along with a dozen or so more modest amendments.

The bill would accomplish the “flip of presumption” that the state’s newspapers and other open-records advocates have long sought, making all records outside a list of exceptions available to the public and forcing agencies to justify their reasons for keeping records secret.

It also would establish an office within the State Ethics Commission to handle access disputes and would require new financial disclosure from the four “state-related” universities: Pitt, Penn State, Lincoln and Temple.

But the comprehensive amendment also would make many other changes to the law, and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association said it was strongly opposed.

Among its complaints, the association said the Legislature went to such lengths in trying to keep its own contacts with the public secret that the draft bill foreclosed access to many records that are available under the existing law.

The bill applies to all new records but does not make pre-existing records public if they were not available under the current law. It also would not make any records public if the courts have previously ruled they are not.

“We believe it represents a step backward,” PNA lobbyist Deb Musselman said after the three-hour hearing at the Capitol. “The provisions that were added to protect constituent privacy are pervasive throughout the bill and they are like a computer virus into all the other agencies.”

Rep. Babette Josephs, D-Philadelphia, who chairs the committee, said the bill was the product of input from both parties, the Senate and the governor’s office. She said it was unlikely to completely satisfy anyone, and added that its procedures may require some getting used to.

“You cannot put on a new pair of shoes and walk 10k,” she said. “Everything has to be broken in.”

Republicans on the committee twice unsuccessfully tried to delay the vote, saying they had not been given enough time to digest the various amendments and that interest groups outside the Capitol needed the opportunity to give their input.

“I believe there were many of us on this side of the aisle who felt we were rushing it through,” said Rep. Kathy Rapp, R-Warren.

Rep. Mike Vereb, R-Montgomery, called the process “a travesty” and pushed for a delay in the committee’s votes.

“I don’t know that this is what I had in mind when I envisioned tackling this issue,” he said.

Musselman said in an e-mail sent late Wednesday morning to Josephs and others that the changes would make it harder to see correspondence and any related documents between legislators and the public, would let agencies deny requests that are “burdensome” and would allow overly broad secrecy provisions for e-mails.

If the bill is taken up in the House early next week, any additional amendments will have to have been filed by the end of this week.