passopenrecords.org

• Where things stand: It’s wait till next year after all. Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D-Greene) announced yesterday evening that the House will take up the final passage vote on Senate Bill 1 as the first order of business this morning at 10. Sen. Dominic Pileggi R-Chester), that body’s majority leader and the prime sponsor of SB 1, had earlier announced that the Senate will not take up his bill again until January 14, 2008.

• Dates and numbers: as it now stands, the House bill excludes birth dates and telephone numbers. My son and I have the same name. So when I go to the drug store to pick up a prescription or to the bank to get some money or countless other places, I am often asked for my date of birth. Since the mirror that helps me shave every day makes it pretty clear that I am the one born in 1945 – not 1980 – the question often seems pointless to me, but I am flattered nonetheless. I certainly don’t consider the information a state secret, and I understand the pharmacy’s and the bank’s need to get the correct information. And I’m scratching my head trying to remember the last form I filled out that didn’t ask for my date of birth, my address and all my phone numbers.

So I’m bewildered why birth dates – information that is also critical to newspapers so they can correctly identify the people in their reports – are excluded from the House bill. But, come to think of it, the yearlong – and so far fruitless – effort to get open-records reform has been a bewildering process from the start. You might think that’s the way some people want it. As for telephone numbers . . . well, if they’re in the phone book. . . .

• Here’s something else pretty bewildering: “Legislators this year spent $466,000 to learn about voting trends. Though publicly funded, results were withheld.”

In a practice believed to be unique to Pennsylvania’s Capitol, reported The Philadelphia Inquirer, legislative leaders have paid out-of-state companies $466,000 this year to conduct focus groups and public-opinion surveys, with the results anything but public.

Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate have defended the practice as an effective way of shaping their priorities, although until late last week all had refused to release results.

Critics call such surveys a waste of money, and even some pollsters question why the results are shrouded in secrecy when the public is paying.

Responding to questions from The Inquirer, House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D-Greene) – who had authorized the most in spending, nearly $290,000 this year – announced Friday that his caucus would stop polling routinely. He also reversed his aides’ refusal and gave copies of the surveys to The Inquirer.

Senate Democrats, as well as Republicans in both chambers, also used public money to pay for polling, although to a much lesser extent. All three of those caucuses had refused to release their results.

“It’s an internal document to help benchmark the issues,” said Steve Miskin, press secretary to House Republicans.

On Friday, four hours after DeWeese released House Democratic polling, Senate Republicans announced they would do the same, but not until this week.

Polling is nothing new in politics, but across the nation political committees, not the public, traditionally pay for it.

“Pennsylvania was founded by leaders who did not need polls, perks, pensions or bonuses to tell them right from wrong,” said Eric Epstein, founder of RockTheCapital.org, a Harrisburg public-interest group. “My God! If these guys were camped out at Valley Forge, they’d have sent out for pizza, floated a bond, and commissioned a poll before sticking one toe in the Delaware River.”